Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) converted vehicle has exploded, causing multiple injuries and destruction of properties within the vicinity of the incident.

The incident was reported to have occurred at one of the CNG stations, NIPCO CNG station, located at Eyean, Auchi Road, Edo State.

It was reported that many sustained injuries and vehicles within the vicinity of the incident were damaged. But, as of this report, no death was recorded.

The explosion reportedly occurred during the refueling of the station wagon’s CNG cylinder vehicle.

It could be recalled that the growing use of CNG in Nigeria emerged as a cost-saving measure in response to rising petroleum prices. However, following this incident, concerns about the human safety of converted CNG vehicles have been raised.

Many netizens questioned the safety of individuals converting their vehicles to CNG.

One X user, @Otunbakush1 stated, “I will keep saying it, if u like abuse me, as long as the vehicle Manufacturers didn’t attach the CNG features to the vehicle pls and pls don’t convert ur car, that’s a moving bomb, this happened at Edo state this morning, CNG converted vehicle exploded.”

In response to the incident, the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI) via their X platform, clarified that the vehicle involved in the incident was illegally converted to CNG, leading to its explosion during gas refueling.

“The Presidential CNG Initiative notes the unfortunate incident that involved an illegally modified vehicle at a NIPCO CNG Station at Ikpoba Hill in Benin City on Wednesday, October 16, 2024.

“The PCNGI commiserate with those injured in this avoidable incident, and thankful that no lives were lost. The PCNGI also note that safe handling of all hydrocarbon is critical to their safe use. A close examination of the cylinder in question in Benin City shows it was welded and modified and not an approved for use for CNG. The police, regulatory authorities and management of NIPCO are undertaking a painstaking investigation of the incident and we are coordinating with them,” PCNGI started.

The PCNGI emphasised the importance of ethical compliance with safety regulations and urged the public to patronise only CNG-accredited conversion centres to avert further tragic occurrences.

Scores of passengers were disappointed across the country following worsening shortage of aircraft in the domestic airline market in the country.

As available flights for passengers is being limited, air commuters find it difficult to move around.

The situation deteriorated on Tuesday as many passengers could not secure flights to their destinations.

The busiest routes, Lagos-Abuja and Abuja-Lagos, were hugely impacted as many passengers could not secure seats as of 4 pm on Tuesday.

It was observed that on the airlines, there were indications that none of them had seats on any of their Lagos-Abuja flights.

For instance, a check on Max Air flight slated for 6 pm indicated that the seats were fully booked. However, it was later gathered that the flight did not operate.

Also, Air Peace flights for 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm on Tuesday showed that they were fully booked or did not operate as they indicated no seat on their website.

Some airline operators have attributed the challenge to capacity constraints being faced by the airlines.

One of them disclosed that there is a shortage of capacity and many people are traveling.

Another operator revealed that most of the airlines have capacity issues and they have also reduced their operations, cutting down drastically to avoid issues.

Aviation analyst, Mr Olumide Ohunayo said the flights that were said to have been sold out were either cancelled or they are not going to operate.

“So it shows the effect of the new consumer protection software and online reporting process which is now very open,” he added.

He stressed that airlines are being careful not to leave schedules open when they know that they are not going to operate it.

Ohunayo noted that ahead of the yuletide, airfares might increase due to the existing capacity constraint.