Red Cross: Death toll at 265 in Nigerian pipeline blast
LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) — Workers carried away the last charred bodies of victims from a fire that swept through a crowd of Nigerians stealing fuel from a ruptured gasoline pipeline, and the death toll reached 265, the Red Cross said Wednesday. Dozens more were injured when the conduit illegally tapped by thieves caught fire Tuesday as residents of an impoverished Lagos neighborhood collected fuel….
I suppose this is the sort of thing one can expect from a country run by greed-head oligarchs who care for nothing but their own enrichment. Nigeria has become so thoroughly corrupted by oil money and the greed it engenders that the multitudes at the bottom of the economic food chain are not even afterthoughts to the rich and powerful, forced to risk their lives by stealing gasoline from pipelines. The sad thing is that this sort of accident is by no means unusual. People die from puncturing gasoline pipelines with disturbing frequency…because life is cheap in Nigeria…unless you’re one of the rich and privileged few.
Nigeria somehow manages to make your average Third World country look like a Caribbean resort. There are few countries whose govenment is more corrupt, inept, and dismissive of the have-nots within their borders than Nigeria, where the poor exist merely to service the whims of the rich oligarchs who rule with an iron fist. 265 dead peasants? Who cares? (There is news of yet another explosion this morning at a pipeline in a poor Lagos neighborhood. Casualty count to follow….)
“With fervent prayers that almighty God will grant eternal peace to those who have died and consolation and strength to the homeless and injured, he invokes the divine gifts of wisdom, strength and peace upon the civil authorities and those engaged in the work of relief and rebuilding,” Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
Right; like anyone in the Vatican, or anywhere else, really cares about a bunch of poor, black Africans…and that is exactly the problem. The West is willing to exploit Nigeria for its oil, and the country’s corrupt government is willing to exploit Nigeria’s poor to prop up their outsized lifestyles.
Then again, who cares about Africa anyway?
