An explosion was said to have occurred yesterday, which almost disrupted activities at the Ejigbo depot of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Lagos.

An eyewitness said thick black smoke could be seen billowing out of the depot which is one of the very busy petroleum depots belonging to the NNPC.

But in a swift reaction to Vanguard's telephone enquiry, Mr. Ralph Ugwu, the Public Affairs Manager of the company stated that there was no truth in the story.

According to him "the issue been referred to is one which involves a tanker outside the depot, the tanker apparently was involved in an accident not too far from the depot, and that was what has been translated to mean a fire outbreak in the depot.

"I don't know about any other situation other than this one which I've just told you, if there was a fire outbreak it's certainly not something which anyone could hide or would want to hide from the public. So that is the story as I've just told you"

However, the story was slightly different when Vanguard contacted the Western Zonal Secretary of Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) arm of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG), Alhaji Tokunboh Korodo, who said that the true story was that a car was driving through the Isolo- Ejigbo road in the afternoon and with a 50 liter keg in its boot filled with petroleum product, and the car developed a fault close to the NNPC depot in Ejigbo.

The man, apparently forgetting that he had a 50 liters keg of petrol in his car drove to a nearby welder to help him weld a part of the vehicle, and while the welder was at work an explosion occurred which was loud enough to send people scampering to safety and the vehicle was burnt down to ashes.

"The situation never affected the depot at all and the safety equipments of the depot was readily available to help restore normalcy to the area, officials and safety men of the PPMC were also on hand to help, as the bang was so loud and scary that people got injured while scampering to safety."

Asked if there was any casualty, Korodo said there was no casualty, stating that the situation was quickly brought under control immediately the people were able to know what went wrong.

"You know nobody wants to die, even if there is no money in the country, so immediately people overcame the first shock of the loud bang they rallied round the situation to ensure it does not escalate."