Fourteen months after the fire outbreak that rendered them homeless, a retired civil servants, Mrs. Christin Adeyinka Kambia, has approached a Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos, asking the court for an order compelling the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to compensate her and others being the victims of the fire incidents that occurred as a result of the negligence of the NNPC to provide adequate protection and security for their pipeline located around Abule Egba axis, off Lagos Abeokuta expressway, Lagos which eventually resulted to spillage into neighborhood and the consequential destructions of the valuables and personal properties of the claimants.
Sued, apart from the NNPC is the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Malami Abubakar SAN.
Besides, the claimants, Mrs. Kambia, Mr. Emeka Oluwatosin Kambia, Mr. Femi Olugbeja, and a female lawyer, (who does not want to appear in print), through their lawyer, Mr. Imran Abdulganeey, are asking the court for N1, 000, 000, 000 as general damages in favour of the claimants.
Specifically, in the suit No: FHC/ L/ CS/2357/19, they asked the court for an order compelling the NNPC to provides continuing, adequate security to protect their pipelines located around Abule Egba axis of Lagos state from vandals at all times, to avert any further future occurrence.
It will be recall that similar fire outbreak occurred in the same axis of Lagos state early this year where several properties were lost to the inferno.
In their statement of claim, the claimants resided as annual tenants in the property situate at No 2/3 Wamon Taofik Street, Abule Egba, Lagos before it was consumed by the fire.
According to the claim, on December 19, 2018, they were sleeping in their respective rooms and flats when they were suddenly awoken by the unusual wailing of neighbors shouting on top of their voices that they(claimants) should hurriedly come out of their house as the fire had almost consumed the premises.
Narrating her ordeal, she said she quickly went to the kitchen to verify the source of the fire but could not find anything but within second she saw the third claimants rushing out of her room and told them to be running out as the fire has touched her room.
She said hardly had they rushed out of the apartment when the fire enveloped and consumed the entire building. Several other houses, shops, cars, and other valuables were burnt beyond recognition.
Although they escaped unhurt, however, all their belongings, were completely burnt as the building was burnt for several hours and not even a pin could be salvaged from the premises.
Part of those items includes their respective academics’ certificates from primary to postgraduate levels, their international passports, voters cards, personal belongings including but not limited to clothes, shoes, jewelries consisting of gold and diamond, in particular deep freezer, fridges, television sets, three set of generators, furniture, as a matter of fact, the claimants cannot exhaust the list of all their belongings that got burnt to ashes.
The claimants said it was in the morning of December 19, 2018 that they got to know that some hoodlums vandalized the NNPC pipelines to scoop fuel however, in the process, the fuel spilled beyond their control and gushing out like erosion trailing inside the gutter that was sloppy downward for the popular abattoir along Agege axis and in the process, catches fire and burnt all the properties on the downturn side including the claimants flats.
They said the NNPC did not deem it appropriate to take any effort to identify, commiserate and compensate the victims of the fire incidents in spite of the atrocities and the wanton destruction of claimants’ properties as a result of the unfortunate fire incident.
The claimants said that it will be unjust, unfair and it will be against natural justice for the claimants to go through these traumas, losing all their belongings, subjected to psychological trauma and mental torture due to no faults of theirs and still not get compensation from the appropriate agency, especially the defendants in this case.
They contend that efforts through their counsel, Mr. Imran Abdulganeey of Brown and Cooper Solicitors to write letters to the defendants and requested that they should be compensated proved abortive as the defendants failed and refused to respond to the content of the letters.
Although the defendants are yet to file any defense, the matter is yet to be assigned to any court for mention.
