A fire service truck entering the library
One person has been confirmed dead in an explosion at the Olúségun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
The explosion occurred around 11am on Thursday at the Marcque Event Centre within the library.
It was gathered that routine cleaning was being done when one of the gas cylinders at the event centre exploded.
A witness told our correspondent that some of the casualties were taken by a rescue team that arrived at the scene shortly after the incident.
The OOPL Managing Director, Vitalis Ortese, in a statement, said the explosion affected the main event marquee of the complex.
According to him, the explosion occurred when two technical vendors were conducting routine servicing of the air conditioning units.
He said, “The explosion, which occurred around 11.04 am, unfortunately, led to the death of a technical vendor and serious injury of the second vendor.
“The emergency team of the library immediately took action to prevent further damage and subsequently moved the injured to the hospital.”
The tragedy brings to four the number of explosions recorded in the last one week in the state.
On Tuesday, the Conference Hotel in Abeokuta owned by a former Governor, Gbenga Daniel, was hit by an explosion which killed two and injured three others.
Last Wednesday, three persons, including an infant, were burnt to death in a gas explosion that occurred in Oke-Egunyan, along the NTA Road in Abeokuta, when a technician was topping up the gas of a faulty refrigerator.
Barely 24 hours after that incident, another gas explosion occurred on Mercy Road, Panseke, Abeokuta, where a technician, Sanya Shonde, was injured, which later led to the amputation of his leg.
Raising concern over the explosions in Abeokuta, a former governorship candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in the state, Adekunle Akinlade, and a group, Neo Black Movement of Africa, raised the alarm over alleged circulation of fake gas cylinders in the state.
Akinlade, in a statement by his media aide, Azeez Adelani, called on the state government to immediately “set up a high-powered team to investigate the source of the adulterated gas to prevent further accidents.”
While conducting a probe panel round the scene of the incident, the state Commissioner of Police, Edward Ajogun, denied reports that the explosion was connected to a bomb.
Ajogun said, “The state government is worried and that is why the governor has directed that we should launch an investigation into the incidences of frequent gas explosions that we have witnessed between May 12 and today.
“But again, it is unfortunate that rumour mongers will be telling you maybe it was a bomb explosion, but there is nothing like bomb. It was just a gas explosion and we want to find out whether it was as a result of human errors or there are things technically wrong in the cylinders that they are using because we are made to understand that some cylinders do expire.”
