Publich backlash has begun to trail the recent commissioning of ten high-capacity firefighting vehicles by the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika.
The controversy began when Sirika took to his social media accounts to announce that he had just commissioned ten firefighting trucks worth N12bn.
Sirika while outlining the importance of fire cover at any aerodrome, recalled the Loyola Jesuit Sosoliso crash of December 10, 2005 in Port Harcourt where a lack of fire cover caused the death of the children who had survived the initial crash.
Sirika had on Sunday via his official Twitter handle announced: ”Just commissioned 10 Firefighting trucks, total cost of over 12Bn Naira. More to come in due course. Safety has been the Buhari focus in Aviation, since 2015. Hitherto FAAN has not bought new trucks in 15 years.”
Giving a breakdown of the capabilities of the equipment, Yadudu said,”Each vehicle not only carries 14,000 litres of water; 1,700 litres of foam and 250kg powder capacity; it also monitors the discharge rate of between 6,000 litres to 10,000 litres per minute. Acceleration rate is from 0 to 80km/hour in 30 seconds.
“The truck can discharge while in motion (professional pump and roll operation) and is equipped with under chassis nozzles to tackle running fuel fire. These vehicles would be deployed to MMA Lagos, NAIA Abuja and MAKIA Kano while we are also processing for additional vehicles for Port-Harcourt and Enugu.
“In addition to acquisition of the major firefighting vehicles we have procured eight new water tankers for continuous agent applications and more will still come. Additional 11 ambulances were also procured to replace the obsolete ones that were bought in 1996. For the first time the Fire Chiefs have their Response Commanders’ Vehicles, the two new Prado jeeps were deployed to MMA and NAIA respectively, more will also be procured in due course.”
However, Nigerians on Twitter reacted to the post by the minister as many wondered why the firefighter vehicles cost so much, calling for a probe of the acquisition.
Below here are some of the reaction harvested on Twitter;
The 2023 Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowere said,” Wow! You mean you bought a single fire engine for over $2 million each. Wonders shall never cease. You and @mbuhari really finished Nigeria! #RevolutionNow.”
A Twitter user, @n6oflife6, said,” The cleaning out these people are doing before leaving office. Heaven helps whoever enters next. You literally spent 30 million United States Dollars on 10 fire trucks. even if they were made by Bugatti and Lamborghini @officialEFCC please check.”
Another Twitter user @yuteoflondon, said,” spent the last hours researching how much fire trucks cost, the expensive high-end trucks cost $650,000 (which Nigeria never gets the best, I can bet these are used trucks too).
“NYC firefighting trucks cost $550k each, what truck did you buy for $2.8m You sir and your cohorts are thieves. Give the spec of this truck and what makes it N1.2B each. the ridiculous broad daylight robbery of our coffers.”
Another Twitter user @aisosaigiebor, said,” This is absolute madness. How can you buy 10 fire trucks for 12bn Naira @1.2bn each?
Fire trucks don’t work well without a direct source of water which we don’t have in most places. This looks like a China truck and from my find, the one that holds 12000 litres is about 80,000$. Why would you pay 1.2bn Naira for one truck? This is insane.
