Fifty-year-old businessman, Alhaji Hamza Badamasi, narrowly escaped death when a tanker explosion occurred at Diko community in Gurara LGA of Niger State recently. In this interview with ADELOWO OLADIPO, he spoke about the incident which led to the death of his two children, two relatives and the destruction of over N4 million goods in one of his shops located close to the scene of the explosion.
HOW did the recent tanker explosion affect you?
My name is Alhaji Hamza Badamasi and I’m 55 years old businessman from Karaye in Kano State but I am based here in Diko community in Gurara Local Government Area of Niger State. For several years now, I live with my family in Diko, including my two wives and four children, as well as some of my relatives brought by their parents from Kano State to stay with me here. That tanker explosion happened very close to my two shops and one of shops was completely burnt down during the unfortunate incident.
Can you recall how the incident happened?
On the fateful Saturday January 18th 2025, I went to open my shop for a friend who usually keeps his welding machine and other working tools inside my shop at the close of work every day for safe keeping against theft. At about 8:00 am, he came to me as usual to carry his equipment. Immediately he left for his workshop, I heard the sound of the crash involving the tanker on the road opposite my shops. After the incident occurred, I learned that the driver went somewhere to hire a similar tanker to transload the contents on board his vehicle into the other vehicle in a bid to save cost and the loss of the haulage; it was a regular thing on the road, especially with heavy duty trucks. No sooner that the road traffic crash occurred, the tanker started leaking.
What exactly did you do to escape the explosion?
I can only thank God for giving me a discerning spirit and for sensing a looming danger. I couldn’t cope with the smell of the petroleum product leaking from the tanker. Like I said earlier, I came out from my house at 8:00 am and I had opened one of my shops where I kept my goods which include several pairs of leather shoes and slippers including fairly used vehicle engines and some aluminum materials. I could recall that I was making telephone calls in front of my shop when I heard a sound of the fallen tanker. The vehicle was coming from Maje-NNPC depot towards Kaduna road and it was fully loaded. The petrol product started leaking and the smell was offensive for me to bear. I looked closer and observed the content gushing out of the compartments of the tanker. Some of my neighbours in the area were in frantic search for containers or jerrycans to scoop the fuel leaking from the vehicle; some of them ran into my shop, without my permission, in search for containers. I tried to caution them against going to scoop the fuel, but they rebuffed it. In fact, I have had to resort to beating one of my children for being recalcitrant and the boy became furious. When I discovered that he didn’t want to be corrected, I left him behind and decided to move away because of the offensive odour of the fuel. That was even before the explosion.
What are the names of your relations that died in the explosion?
Their names are Isah Badamasi (25 years old), Usman Badamasi (24 years old), Saidu Badamasi (35 years old) and Jemilu Badamasi (30 years old). It was after I left the shop that Saidu joined others to scoop fuel from the vehicle. Unfortunately, they were all caught unaware by the explosion. Two of the four people I lost to the explosion are my biological children. They died instantly and suffered serious burns from the explosion.
What do you want the government to do for you?
What I can say for now is that the government should please help me in whatever way they can support me financially. In fact, I am still very sad, not only because of my two children but also because of the deaths of the two relatives that also lost their lives. I also lost an entire shop where I kept some of my goods valued at N4 million. The goods destroyed by the fire incident included several pairs of leather shoes, slippers, scraps and fairly used vehicle engines and some aluminum.
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