By Badmus Shina
It is not the best time for the family of Oturubo that lost their son, Freedom Opai Otorubo, to Trans-Forcados pipeline explosion that occurred at Yeye, in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, recently.
According to family sources, until the incident, Freedom had attained piloting skill in the Presidential Amnesty Programme for Niger Delta ex-agitators.
He was trained in South Africa after which, he left for Lufthansa Aviation Training School in Germany.
When he returned home and was waiting for induction into his profession, he was trained as a safety personnel. This garnered him self-employment as a contractor.
His contracting firm was engaged in rural jobs, especially cleaning up crude oil (pipeline equipment) that spilled. It was in the cause of duty that Freedom was killed by a thumped up machine that caught fire at the Transforcados Pipeline.
According to the source, “Freedom was a safety officer as well as a contractor in the community. He was given a cleanup job at Transfocados pipeline by Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited for which he was mobilized and taken to the field to commence work.
“During the process of the job, the Ocean Marine services brought a fuel water pump to the site for the clean up instead of a spill pump.
“The fuel water pump caused the explosion. The fuel water pump used to transfer the crude from the pit to the batch wasn’t supposed to be used for that job.
“Even for the procedure according to company’s regulations they weren’t supposed to use water pump but spill pump. It was during the process of evacuating the crude, the water pump they were using to work on the place, exploded killing Freedom.”
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