A truck has crushed two personnel of the Nigerian Navy riding on a motorcycle at the Durbar Junction bus stop, Mile 2 in Lagos.
The two yet-to-be identified Naval personnel were said to be moving along the service lane of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, as two truck drivers attempted to overtake each other, when the incident occurred.
Our correspondent gathered that when the truck coming from Durbar Road was trying to negotiate a bend to the expressway, it was at that time that the military men were trying to ride past the truck, which fell and rolled over them, crushing them instantly.
The driver and conductor of the truck were alleged to have escaped from the scene, having realised the consequences of what had happened and the danger they would face if soldiers met them at the scene. So, they both took to their heels and went into hiding.
It was gathered at the scene of the accident that other military men passing through the place had to stop –by with some of them allegedly venting their anger on other truck drivers, who abandoned their vehicles and went into hiding for the fear of reprisals from the military men.
The Naval authorities were said to have brought a towing van to remove the vehicle from the scene. They also evacuated the bodies of the deceased personnel from the scene to the Navy Hospital.
An eyewitness, Oladimeji Jaiyeola, said, “The two military men did not envisage any danger as they were probably riding to their residence at the barracks. But as the truck coming from Durbar Road was negotiating a bend, the truck fell and killed the two military men. They died instantly. Don’t you know what is called a truck carrying container? They died and scattered on the ground with the motorcycle. My brother, I cried for
them.
“Some of the military people were very angry and were looking for truck drivers to invent their anger on. Some of the drivers left their trucks and vanished but later came back. I pity the two victims. It was a terrible death. They did not die in war outside the country. They did not die in war of Boko Haram, these useless truck drivers that have made lives unbearable for Lagosians killed them. Government should do something about these tanker and truck drivers. We are already fed up with Lagos; if not for money to feed my family, I would not be here. The stress is becoming too much,” he said.
A commercial motorcycle rider, Kamoru Raimi, said he wept and bled in his heart over the accident.
“I was watching the road as the truck was trying to join the expressway from Durbar Road, here at Mile Two. The way the driver was driving was as if somebody was chasing him, made me to move my motorcycle from the Durbar Junction and as I was moving, that was when the truck fell. When they said the two navy men were under the container, I screamed because I saw them trying to move out of traffic jam. Many soldiers came; they flogged some truck drivers, who were still looking for ways to move their vehicles away from the scene,” Raimi said
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, CSP Chike Oti, confirmed the accident, saying a truck actually fell at the Durbar Junction, Mile Two.
Oti confirmed that only one of the personnel died, when he was rushed to a Navy Hospital.
He added that the Navy personnel on the passenger seat was still alive. He also said that the Divisional Police Officer of Festac Police Division, CSP Okon Udom, had recovered the truck from the
Navy.
He also said that the police arrested the driver of the truck while his conductor was still at large.