Petrol tanker crashes in Abuja

A tanker filled with petrol crashed on the Nyanya-Mararaba Road in Abuja at about 7am on Saturday.

The crashed tanker lay horizontally on the busy road, impeding the movement of vehicles and resulting in traffic gridlock extending to Karu Road.

A witness told TheCable that the driver of the tanker escaped unscathed.

“The crash happened at about 7am. I was driving through the Nyanya Road when it happened,” he said.
“Nobody died. However, it is dangerous because the tanker is carrying fuel.”

Soldiers cordoned off the area, and officers of the federal road safety corps moved the fallen vehicle out of the road to restore normalcy to the area.

Initially, there was panic at Nyanya, as residents thought the crash was another aborted Boko Haram attack. But the presence of security operatives helped to ease the panic.

“This is the handiwork of Boko Haram,” a resident of Nyanya told TheCable. “I think its is another attack, but the tanker did not explode.”

Another resident, who simply identified himself as Gabriel thought that “looking at the time the tanker fell and the part of the road it collapsed on”, one would would “understand that it was an attack by terrorists”.

Nyanya has recently witnessed two bomb blasts, hence the apprehension of residents.

The department of state security services warned last month that Boko Haram was planning to launch bomb attacks on the the federal capital territory using petrol tankers.