After Losing 11 Family Members to Enugu Tanker Fire, Victims' Relative Speaks Out

One reads and hears about accidents and tanker fires on the news but is often far away from it actually feel the real-life damage it causes. Yet even though one doesn't feel it, these things ACTUALLY affect people's lives and upend the lives of some like 37 year old Ikechukwu Nwaji who lost 11 family members all in the space of one day because of a devastating tanker fire.

Speaking to Punch about how he lost 11 family members to the Enugu tanker fire and how he feels now, victims' relative Ikechukwu Nwaji revealed saying:

IKECHUKWU NWAJI: It was during the preparation of our father’s burial that my elder brother, Mr Jeremiah Nwaji, and his family; his wife, six children, his maid, his male servant, and my younger brother, Emmanuel (11 of them) died. They were travelling in a Sienna bus from Onitsha, Anambra State, to Ebonyi State for the burial on Saturday, January 25th, 2025, when they were caught up in a tanker fire and burnt to death around 11am at the Ugwu Onyeama along Onitsha-Enugu Expressway, Enugu.

We learnt that a tanker loaded with premium motor spirit (petrol) skidded and exploded into flames of fire. They were burnt to ashes. I say this because when we got there on Sunday, what we saw and packed into a nylon bag were ashes and the burnt remnant of the Sienna bus. So, the gathering you are seeing here is the outcome of my father’s burial which was eventually held.

However, we buried the ashes packed at the scene of the explosion in Enugu; but we are still going to bury them properly as our tradition demands. My late elder brother and his wife are adults, and my younger brother is over 20 years old. But the others would be buried as children. My late elder brother was 40 years old; he was my immediate elder brother.

He (my elder brother) told me he would be travelling that very day to Ebonyi State for our father’s burial, and we used to drive to Ebonyi State from Onitsha for three hours or three and a half hours depending on the traffic situation on the road. So, he told me he would leave Onitsha for Ebonyi State that very day around 10am. But my simple calculation was that he would be in Ebonyi State by 2pm or 2.30pm.

Expectedly, when I didn’t see them at 2pm that day, I picked up my phone and called his line, it was switched off. I called his wife’s line, but it was switched off; I called his boy servant’s phone number, but it was also not reachable. I then called my younger brother’s phone, his was also switched off. At this point, I became very uncomfortable, and I said this was unusual. So, from that very moment, I started wondering what the reason could be why his line, his wife’s, his servant’s phone, and that of my younger brothers were not available. I equally thought it was network issues.

Then I grabbed my phone again and started surfing the internet to see if I could find a trace of what could be happening within the South-East. Then I started hearing of a tanker explosion in Enugu, but I didn’t believe that until later in the night that day when I saw videos online and read it in the news. I couldn’t still believe it until the following day, which was on Sunday.

It’s still unexplainable how I felt. I felt speechless, downcast, destabilised, and confused. It’s a story for another day. It was traumatic to see the charred remains of my family members and their servants; it was devastating.

To remember that my elder brother, his wife, his children, my younger brother, my father’s maid, and boy servant are no more is the most horrible thing that could happen to anybody. It’s painful because I have not heard or seen it happen to anybody. I won’t even wish this to happen to my worst enemy.

This is such a devastating story. Let me know your thoughts about this by leaving a comment either below or on my Jide Okonjo Facebook post.

That's All.

I hope you’ve had fun. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter if you don’t already for more stories like this - collated every week and sent right to your inbox so you don't miss out on anything.

Also, if you want to earn money, I've made a free tutorial called FREE TUTORIAL: How I Earn Daily Side-Income Through Photo Editing (2025). Basically, in addition to blogging, I also make a side income through photo-editing work, so if you want to check out my tutorial on how I do that, click here.

To catch up on other content you might have missed, click here.

Until next time, have a wonderful rest of your day