Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has said the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) certificate of a mining company indicted for Tuesday’s explosion in the Bodija area of Oyo State showed some foreign names as owners.
Makinde, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday night, also said the death toll in the unfortunate blast had risen to three as one more victim died in a hospital today.
“We recovered one individual alive today (Wednesday) under the rubble. 60 of the 77 people hospitalised have been discharged,” the governor said.
“We are trying to uncover the identities of the people. We’ve done a few fact-finding on the company involved and yes, there are indeed some foreign names on the CAC documents of the company involved but these are still early days. We don’t have anything to cover,” he said.
Makinde said the state has identified an individual of interest that security agents should be inviting for questioning.
“It is not anything that has to do with banditry and insurgency but illegal miners that stored explosives in a residential area,” the governor clarified.
He said the state government has no reason for cover-up and that the people of state should trust his administration.
Makinde said he would seek presidential approval for miners to store explosives with the military, and that he would sign an executive order in the coming days to that effect.
The governor said those whose houses were destroyed had been provided temporary shelter in hotels in Bodija and in the Agodi areas of the state capital.