Three burnt to death in Lagos Ibadan Highway crash
Expectedly, the incident worsened the already chaotic gridlock on the busy highway occasioned by the ongoing repair of the road. This left motorists and commuters stranded for several hours, especially on the lane outward Lagos, where the accident occurred.
The fire started around 3:00a.m., shortly after the brake of a tanker, laden with 33,000 litres of diesel, failed. It rammed into a truck carrying brewery products at high speed. Scores of commuters were subjected to trekking long distances yesterday morning following the multiple accidents.
Many of those trekking were people living in Ibafo, Mowe, Warewa, Prayer City area and Arepo in Ogun State working or going to transact various businesses in Lagos State.
Also affected were those travelling to Lagos from other parts of Nigeria as well as those travelling out of Lagos.According to a witness, the resultant inferno engulfed two other trucks and a Toyota Corolla saloon car. Mercifully, the number of casualty was minimal.
Spokesperson of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Southwest zone, Ibrahim Farinloye, who confirmed the incident, attributed its cause to lack of vehicle maintenance.
Also, the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), in a statement, said the incident occurred at 3:08a.m involving the tanker, two container-laden trucks and one saloon car.
“The driver was said to have abruptly applied brake at the Kara Bridge outward Lagos, resulting in the multiple accident and fire outbreak with colossal loss,” the statement added.
Although, the burnt truck have been evacuated from the scene by the combined efforts of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and other security operatives, vehicular movements in and out of Lagos were locked down for most parts of yesterday, while motorists were advised to take alternative routes.
The Guardian gathered that the remains of the three persons burnt beyond recognition have been evacuated by the security agencies. However, some motorists, who were stuck in traffic for hours and had their plans disrupted as a result of the incident, lamented that the accident has become one too many.
One of them, who gave his name simply as Dare, urged the Federal Government and other relevant authorities to prevail on the contractor handling the road repairs to be more professional in order to lessen the several man-hours spent on the highway daily.
According to him, an average motorist spends between three to four hours between Tollgate and Warewa everyday because of the ongoing rehabilitation on Long Bridge, which he said was being done without recourse to the sufferings of road users.
He berated the government for not doing enough to safeguard the lives of its citizens on the road, saying there are many avoidable accidents on the road due to its poor state.
The gridlock that started from the Kara Bridge, close to the popular Julius Berger Bus Stop, stretched to Asese, a few kilometres away from the Redemption Camp as at 8:00a.m.
Similarly, the queue formed by the Lagos outbound vehicles had stretched from the scene to Magodo, opposite the Lagos State Secretariat complex.
Many intending passengers that had wanted to travel to Lagos were stranded at their various bus stops because majority of the commercial buses that could have conveyed them were held in the traffic.
Only last week, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), berated the Federal Government for not doing enough to prevent crashes on the Expressway, saying the time is now for the investigation of all road traffic accidents and the prosecution of offending motorists.
According to him, the killing of Nigerians on the roads should be stopped or reduced drastically.While regretting that government has not lived up to its constitutional duties, he stated plans of collecting data on the number of deaths on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway due to the deplorable state of the road, with a view to initiating legal actions against government and others who contributed to the state of the road.
He further called on the Lagos State government to ensure that commercial vehicles in the state are insured so that the lives lost to accidents are not simply wasted.
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