A lorry driver escaping from Anambra State revenue agents has killed three persons in Onitsha state’s commercial hub.
LEADERSHIP gathered that the incident occurred yesterday at the Onitsha end of the Niger Bridge near the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s sculpture.
Eyewitness said that the lorry driver who was carrying Kings vegetable oil was driving out from the Harbour Industrial Layout area of the town towards Asaba in Delta state when some hefty-log wielding youths at the checkpoint jumped into the driver’s side, and, started struggling with him for the lorry steering.
The lorry driver was said to have lost control of the lorry in the process and hit some commercial tricycle operators carrying some passengers and crushed about three persons in the process.
Narrating the incident the eye-witness said, “As soon as they( Anambra state revenue agents) jump on the vehicle, the one on the side of the driver started struggling for the steering of the vehicle with the driver apparently to force him to stop and in the process he lost control of the vehicle, which crashed into the tricycles plying the area and crushing instantly the (tricycle) drivers and some passengers they were carrying.”
He said one of the victims even had his head chopped off, while the other victims’ bodies were mangled, while others who were fast to jump out of the tricycles sustained various degree of injuries.
According to the eyewitness, “but for the officers and men of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, who have their Unit Office, near the scene, that brought their towing vehicle to lift the fallen 911 that trapped the three tricycles, more passengers would have been killed in the avoidable accident.”
The accident affected vehicular movement as entry to and exit from Onitsha to Asaba was made impossible following a long traffic that extended from Asaba end of the Head Bridge to Oko market and Onitsha end of the bridge to close to Upper Iweka.
The eyewitness said that revenue agent who was struggling for the steering of the lorry, otherwise, called 911 with the driver also sustained serious injury when he jumped down from the vehicle and escape along with his colleagues to avoid being mobbed.
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