Nigeria Police was established to
protect lives and property. What
happened, last week, however,
ran contrary to this creed as
four persons in police uniform,
operating in a bullion van, allegedly pursued a truck owned
by a cement company, following
which the driver lost control and
rammed into some buses,
crushing the passengers as well
as some Okada riders and traders to
death on Sagamu-Benin-Ore
expressway. It was a gory spectacle: The
wreckage of the vehicles and
horrifying mangled human bodies
littered the scene. Sympathisers
beholding blood stains
everywhere threw themselves to the ground; anxiety gripped
many people who
were searching for their loved
ones. The accident, which claimed
about 30 lives, occurred at the
Mabolufon junction, Ijebu – Ode,
Ogun State, also left dozens of
people critically injured. Some of
the victims, according to findings, were roadside traders
and people who were waiting
to board vehicles. Sunday Vanguard learnt that the
remains of seven persons,
including a pregnant woman,
were deposited at the morgue of
the General Hospital, Ijebu – Ode,
while doctors battled to save the lives of over 20 persons said
to be critically injured.
An eye witness said the ill-fated
truck, with registration number,
EDO RRU 33 XA, was allegedly
being chased by the policemen
in the bullion van as the driver
reportedly drove against the traffic. In a bid to evade arrest,
the truck crushed the buses
which had stopped for
passengers to alight at the
Ijebu Ode junction. All the
passengers in one of the buses coming from one of the eastern
states were killed on the spot. A traffic official with Ogun State
agency, TRACE, disclosed that
they were busy packing the
corpses to the mortuary. “ The
accident is pathetic. I have never
witnessed such an ugly incident in my life. We have taken over 10
bodies to the mortuary, while the
Federal Road Safety Commission,
FRSC, has taken over seven
bodies. The ambulance of the
Ogun State Accident Team has also taken many corpses and
more are still lying there”. Moments after the incident, some
residents of nearby Ijebu Ode,
Egbe, Atiba and Moraika,
thronged the scene, lamenting
the incident which many
attributed to the careless driving of the driver of the truck.
The truck, laden with fertilizers,
was nearly burnt by the angry
mob, but for the quick
intervention of some policemen
who were on the highway directing traffic. The affected buses, a blue
Mazda bus marked, Ondo KTP11
XA, and Toyota Hiace bus,
marked, Lagos XW 530 GGE, had
full load of passengers allegedly
coming from Ondo. Meanwhile, Ogun State Police
Command has denied being
responsible for the auto mishap.
The State Police Public Relations
Officer, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, said
the truck driver allegedly responsible for the accident had
been arrested. Giving the driver’s name as
Adeboye Adebayo, Adejobi said
the driver caused the accident
by entering the expressway from
the Ikorodu axis of the road on
top seed. The PRRO said it was in a bid by
the driver to beat a bullion van
which was also on top speed
along the express way that he
rammed into oncoming vehicles. ‘’Putting the records straight, it
was the bullion van (painted blue)
that caused that accident”, he
said. He added that Adebayo
was making statement to the
police on the incident. In the meantime, some survivors of the
accident were facing threat of
rejection by the management of
the General Hospital, Ijebu Ode
over failure to pay for
treatment. When Sunday Vanguard visited
the hospital, it was gathered
that the critically injured victims
were being rejected by the
nurses on the grounds of
payments. The visit however served as the saving grace for
the survivors as the rejection
was reversed. A deputy commissioner of police,
Abdul Majeed Alli, who was on
an on- the-spot assessment at
the scene of the
accident ,handed over an
undisclosed amount of money to the management of the state
owned hospital for the
treatment of the victims. But the driver of the ill-fated
truck accused some policemen of
causing the accident. “A bullion
van with four policemen suddenly
blocked me and asked me to
park but I suspected they could be armed robbers. So, I did not
stop. As I was running from them.
I rammed into two buses and
road side traders”. The Ijebu zonal commander of
TRACE, Commander Hamzat
Tommy, confirmed that over 30
persons died in the accident,
saying: “The number of the dead
is about thirty something,a pregnant woman was involved.
You need to see how the foetus
rushed out, it was pathetic and
gory. “Young boys and girls were also
involved, even Okada riders who
we always advised not to stay
on the expressway, see how some
of them lost their lives because
of what they wanted to eat. ”My boys worked till very late in the
night, evacuating corpses from
the scene.” Narrating how the accident
happened, the Sector
Commander of the FRSC, Ayobami
Omiyale, said,”I was told that the
truck lost control due to over
speeding as it was gathered that the police were chasing the
driver for driving against the
traffic. In the process of
escaping, the truck ran into the
waiting buses and crushed the
passengers to death.”
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/09/police-how-driver-killed-30-injured-many-while-trying-to-evade-arrest/