Security Agencies Declares Owner of Monaco Illegal Cooking Gas Wanted For Operating From His Room

Rabiu Omaku

 

Fourteen months after the death of over seventeen persons and destruction of over ten vehicles in a gas explosion at Monaco Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in Lafia, the Nasarawa state capital, security agencies has declared  the owner  who is operating an in his room wanted.

 

Feelers who informed security operatives in the state buttressed that owner of Monaco was operating an illegal cooking gas outlet in a residential area of Bukan Sidi without safety measures.

 

Controller of Nasarawa State office of the Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR), Alhaji Abdurrahman Mohammad said, “Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp, (NSCDC)  placed the owner on a wanted list for  installing a commercial gas cylinder for retail to small household cylinders in his house.

 

DPR described the unfolding as illegal. Saying the quick intervention of the Fire Service whose personnel cordoned and evacuated the area and controlled the licking valve thereby averted a major disaster which would have been a second round of mass death caused by the carelessness of Monaco.

 

A witness, Malam Mubarak said, “The big trailer size gas tank started licking and white substance around 7 in the morning, that led the resident in the area of Bukan Sidi to run away from the area for safety until when Fire Service controlled the gas tank from explosion.”

 

The Chief Fire Officer of Nasarawa State, Alhaji Dalhatu Dogara confirmed the incident.

 

According to him, “The owner of the gas plant simply called Mister Monaco was operating from his own house and we are happy to have been lucky to have contained the lick from exploding.”

 

He said, when the gas plant of Monaco exploded about a year and a half ago,  he installed another tank in his house and continued discharging to small gas cylinders for retail.

 

Dogara confided that the police and NSCDC are hunting for the suspect who is now at large.