The evil you’ve done is enough
FG wants to ban some fuel tankers
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- Margaret
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Let’s get into today’s edition:
FG wants to ban 60,000-litre tankers
The Nigerian Police Force is back with answers about the missing guns
The Big Deal
FG wants to ban 60,000-litre tankers
The federal government has been feeling the heat lately because everything seems to be on the rise, including petrol tanker accidents. To control the tragedy, FG is thinking about banning 60,000-litre fuel tankers.
This consideration arose from a stakeholders meeting held on Thursday, February 13, at which the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) also proposed that tankers should no longer be allowed to carry more than 45,000 litres of fuel at a time. But here’s the thing—this problem didn’t start today, and the sizes of the exploding tankers might not even be the main issue.
In 2022, there were four tanker accidents, which led to the death of seven people. 2023 was even more tragic, with two accidents taking the lives of 24 people. Then came 2024, when things escalated badly—11 accidents and 341 deaths. In the first two months of 2025 alone, we’ve already seen five accidents, 121 deaths and 79 injuries. All of these add up to 493 deaths, all in the space of three years. If the trend continues, this year might be the worst in the history of tanker explosions.
To be fair, the government hasn’t just been sitting around watching people lose their lives. Safety measures like mandatory driver training, anti-spill strategies, and rules meant to prevent unfit tankers from hitting the road are already in place.
Why is this a big deal?
Getting rid of the bigger tankers and living happily ever after sounds like the ideal fix Nigeria needs, but let’s walk you through some of the most tragic cases of tanker explosions we’ve witnessed most recently and why this possible ban might not be the magic want it sounds like.
In October 2024, a petrol tanker overturned and exploded in Majiya village, Jigawa, as villagers tried to scoop the spilt fuel. This explosion led to the death of over 180 people. History repeated itself in January 2025 when residents of Niger State also tried to scoop spilt fuel from a tanker that had gotten into an accident. The death toll from this event was over 80.
The trend of fuel scooping isn’t limited to just these two tragic events. If you’re wondering what the connection is, the New York Times describes it as “a quest for cheap fuel” triggered by the rising rate of hardship in Nigeria. Thanks to President T, fuel prices have become more expensive than low-earning Nigerians can easily afford. While the decision to ban 60,000 litres might reduce these accidents, it doesn’t completely address the problem.
Besides poverty, there are other underlying factors that the government isn’t considering in the fight against tanker explosions. For example, the governor of Niger State, Mohammed Bago, linked the fuel tanker explosion in his state to the delayed construction of the Minna-Suleja Road and the slow effort of the federal government to fix the road (and when we say slow, we mean 14 years kind of slow). Bago is not the only one who sees a connection between the awful roads and the explosions. In a 2018 poll carried out by NOI Polls to examine the safety of Nigerian roads, 82% of Nigerians agreed that bad roads are the leading cause of road accidents in the country.
This possible ban will not just leave these problems unsolved; it’s also likely to create new ones. The National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) said the ban would wipe out over ₦300 billion in investments, and here’s how—About 2,000 of these 60,000-litre tankers are in operation, and each one costs around ₦150 million, with many bought through loans, yet to be repaid. Banning them overnight could send a lot of transporters into a financial crisis.
There’s also the fact that fuel distribution in Nigeria is currently carried out by tanker trucks. Any disruption, such as a poorly implemented ban, could lead to potential fuel shortages and increased costs.
If you asked us what the real solution to this is, we’d say the government shouldn’t stop at banning a few tankers. It needs to create and implement stricter safety policies, better road infrastructure, and driver regulations. It also needs to get brilliant experts to revisit the drawing board to figure out how to achieve all these before we lose more Nigerians.
The Nigerian Police Force is back with answers about the missing guns
Remember how we said the 3,907 “missing” Police firearms might be deep in a whale’s stomach? Turns out the answer is much worse.
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has finally responded to the Senate’s request for an explanation but their response is giving damage control.
According to police spokesperson Olumuyiwa Adejobi, these missing guns aren’t really missing—they’re just unaccounted for (apparently, these two words should mean different things in this context). He explained that some of the weapons were taken during civil unrest, and others were simply not found during routine audits, possibly because officers had them for ongoing operations.
The police also pointed out that this issue didn’t start under the current Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun. They say a 2019 audit report is just resurfacing, making it seem like this is news when it’s actually an old gist.
While the police insist they’ve been making efforts to recover the “unaccounted for” weapons, we’re more concerned about how this is just another regular shenanigan in a country already dealing with insecurity. We’d choose a whale’s stomach over finding out what 3,907 weapons can do in the wrong hands.
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Lagos Govt Hikes BRT Fares, Cites ‘Cost Of Operations’: The Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) has increased the fares for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Lagos.