DPR shuts down 30 filling stations, 8 LPG plants in Akwa Ibom

The sealed filling stations were located in the capital Uyo, Eket, and Onna local government areas of the state.

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) locked up the facilities for various offences, State Operations Controller of DPR, Victor Ohwodiasa said.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Eket that the filling stations and LPG outlets were sealed for offences ranging from under dispensing, operating without valid sales and storage license, poor housekeeping, poorly sited and illegally operating in the state.

"We can't continue to allow illegality because we don't need accident to occur first, we just have to be proactive instead of being reactive," he said on Thursday. "It is going to be a continuous fight because people are constrained because of the environmental condition, economic hardship, they want to cut corners and that is why we have regulators to check them."

Ohwodiasa said: "We are drawing a plan to touch all the 31 LGAs of the state, cutting across not just filling stations but gas outlets so that they can have the feel of our presence in the state.

"Nobody will want to go into business without conducting due diligence, feasibility study or safety audit to ensure that what are the safety implications of my actions or inactions.

"We need to educate them because nobody wants to kill himself, nobody wants to invest in a facility and allowed the facility to go down overnight.

"So, we need to continue to educate them on safety implications of what they are doing wrongly and the need for them to correctively do it so that we will not have ugly incidents in the state," he added.