…angry drivers, commuters barricade road
Commuters plying the Benin-Lagos road were on Friday stranded for several hours, as luxury bus drivers barricaded the road.
The action was taken in protest against the alleged killing of a pregnant woman and a male passenger of Young Shall Grow Transport Service’s bus, by armed robbers.
They were reportedly killed in the early hours of
Friday.
A driver with Ezewanta Transport Service and his conductor were also shot but had been taken to an undisclosed hospital for treatment, at the time our correspondent visited the scene.
Only on June 1, 2017, armed robbers shot and killed passengers on Benin-Lagos Express road which led to the closure of the road by protesters, leaving commuters stranded for several hours.
Vehicles conveying the day’s newspapers such as The Sun, Nigerian Tribune, Complete Sport, Daily
Independence, The Point, The Guardian and Business Day, were among those delayed for several hours.
According to Mr. Sulaman Tajudeen, a driver with Complete Sport who arrived Benin City at 2:20pm, the luxury bus drivers blocked the road in protest against the killings and the frequent robbery attacks on the Benin-Lagos express road.
Tajudeen recalled that the protesters said they would not leave the roads until they extracted a promise from government to put an end to the robbery attack on the road.
He said at the heat of the protest, the luxury bus transport union of the zone which called for the protest went to ascertain the health condition of those shot by the armed robbers and were told by the doctors that they were in a stable state of mind and that the sum of N35, 000 should be deposited to commence treatment on them.
He said the union immediately swung into action by asking stranded passengers and transporters to contribute their quota to foot their hospital bills which the passengers all sympathetically did.
He said the union having been satisfied with the response from the commuters and other drivers, decided that the road should be cleared for vehicular movement.
Attempts to get the reaction of the Edo State Police Command proved abortive as several phone calls put across to the State Police
Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Kombe, were not answered.
