By Ifeanyi Okolie

Some residents of Kirikiri Creek-View Estate who were recently alleged to be hatching plans to blow up Kirikiri Tank Farms by one Babatunde Shabi have cried out over what they tagged ‘dubious, malicious, defamatory and scandalous’ allegations against them stating that the alarm was a grand design to retain the ‘criminally domineering relevance of their accusers.

They further alleged that their accusers, having realized that the oil tank farms are now aware that they are not true representative of the community and that they misled them (the oil farms) in all matters relating to hazardous impact of the operations of their farms on the community for which appropriate agencies of government are currently investigating, resorted to blackmail and making frivolous allegations.

Representatives of the residents, Patrick Umeh, I.K. Osunde and Chris Onalo told Crime Alert that the cry of their accusers which is more than that of the oil tank farms themselves, emanated from the heat generated by the association’s genuine appeal letter of December 31, 2010 and subsequent meetings with relevant Federal and State Government agencies and parastatals, i.e., Department of Petroleum Resources, Lagos State Ministry of Environment, Lagos State Ministry of Urban and Physical Planning, Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, and DPO Kirikiri Police Station, on the terrible hazards which residents of their estate are exposed to following the activities of the five oil Tank farms located less than 200 meters away from the residential area.

Some of the tank farms in Kirikiri Town

“We still restate here our association’s objectives and commitments to the promotion and maintenance of peace, unity, security and development of our estate in particular, and Kirikiri community in general, ensuring that people live in safety, peace and work with state Government and Agencies of Government to provide/sustain security and social infrastructures in our domain.

“We are aware that our accusers are doing all these to deceive the public into believing that whatever evil they are planning against the oil tank farms and Kirikiri community in general, when fully executed, will be seen to have been carried out by the outspoken representatives of the estate.

One is really at a lost as to the interest of the accusers in our complaint to the Government of Environmental degradation, noise pollution, drainage blockages, heavy traffic congestion on the streets, parking of fuel tankers and other long vehicles along the roads, inherent danger of chemical/oil spills, filtration of street urchins into our estate as a result of retailing/sales and hawking of petroleum products, plastic/drums, construction of holding-bays close to residential houses and overnight loading activities of the oil tank farms, among others.

The sinister motives of our accusers is also evidenced in the malicious petitions they wrote and distributed to security agencies against officials of the estate residents association in which they made spurious and highly criminal allegations ostensibly to intimidate, embarrass and blackmail those of us they branded as enemies”, they stated.