Chief John Okeiyi-Kalu, the Commissioner for Information in Abia, has said that more children whose parents died in the Osisioma Pipeline fire will be accommodated in the governor’s scholarship programme.
Okeiyi-Kalu disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Aba on Tuesday.
The commissioner, who said four of such children had been awarded scholarships already, added that the governor had set up a committee to find the remote and immediate causes of the fire.
NAN recalls that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on October 12 announced an oil pipeline fire outbreak along the Osisioma axis near Aba Depot, Abia, in its System 2E pipeline network.
He said the committee was mandated to compile names of victims to enable the government to get a dependable record on the incident.
He gave the assurance that the N10 million donated by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, would be shared to victims’ families within two weeks.
He said government was being careful with the sharing process so as to ensure that the money did not end up in wrong hands.
He said: “The committee will also write a comprehensive report which would be handed over to the governor when they finish sitting.
“We do not want to run and do the wrong thing. It is not the way to go. Meanwhile we have awarded scholarship to four children of one of the men who died as a result of that disaster.
“We have offered free medical assistance to some of them who ran away, fearing arrest by police and I am happy they survived.
“I believe that in the next one or two weeks, the committee will complete its interim report and hand it over to the governor and we will ensure that everyone is compensated.”
Okeiyi-Kalu advised all affected families to write to the governor through the committee.
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