Relief may soon come the way of residents of Ijegun-Egba Community area of Lagos, host to several tank farms, as the operators say they are working toward ensuring continuous safety of lives and property in the area.
The deport owners made the disclosure on Tuesday at a stakeholders and engagement meeting in Lagos.
The meeting was to find ways to providing solutions to lingering infrastructure challenges affecting the community.
There are 12 tank farms in operation now, and they have made life miserable for people living in Ijegun-Egba and its environs.
The Chairman, Tank Farm Owners Association, Mr Debo Olujimi, said that addressing those infrastructure challenges within was paramount to the depot owners.
Olujimi said the tank farmers place premium on providing solution to those infrastructure decay such as bad roads, bridge and blocking of drainage systems in the area.
He said that business owners in the community had secured four plots of land for central fire service station, but still processing licence for the purpose from the Lagos State Government.
Olujimi said that other plans included effective traffic management in order to avert accident and providing of alternative roads to ease traffic on Maruwa Road, a major road within the community.
He said the business owners were committed to ensuring good business relationship with the host community.
“The essence of the stakeholders and engagement meeting is to ensure that we are all on the same page on the issues that have to do with infrastructure, safety of lives and property.
“Ijegun, today, does an average of 30 to 35 petroleum trucks daily and that is a serious economic improvement and that means three to four millions litres of petroleum come out everyday from Ijegun.
“We are trying to partner with Lagos State, Federal Government, Department of Petroleum Resources and every other stakeholder in terms of infrastructure and best practices in Ijegun,” he added.
Olujimi said that so far, the community had not recorded any issue regarding health challenge.
According to him, the tank farm owners have spent over N1.5 million in fixing roads and in palliatives.
Olujimi also said that it was to show their commitment as responsive and responsible business people in making sure that the needful was done in the community.
Also, Mr Wole Akinyosoye, the Deputy Director/Zonal Operations Controller, Lagos, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), said the agency was on top of safety issues in the community.
“We need to put it on record that whatever we are doing in Ijegun, DPR is on top of it regarding safety.
“We have this contingency plans and collective safety activation.
“How does that work? It works by pooling together all the facilities- hardware and human resources.
“We normally do drills ones in three months in order to establish the state of readiness and alertness,” he said.
The Chairman, Satellite Forum, Mr Godwin Imitini, said that the influx of tankers remained a menace to the community.
Imitini said the tankers’ presence within the community, which used to be mainly a residential area, had created hardship for the residents.
He said the residents had on several occasions written correspondence to DPR and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the development, but had not received any response so far.
Imitini urged the operators and state government to look into the challenges confronting the community as a result of the presence of the depot and trucks causing hardship to the residents.
