Posted by By Paul Sanusi on
No fewer than 17 people were seriously injured when a yellow-coloured Mercedes Benz 911 commuter bus, popularly called Molue, with registration number, Anambra AE 311 AGU, fell at the 3rd Mainland Bridge, yesterday.
No fewer than 17 people were seriously injured when a yellow-coloured Mercedes Benz 911 commuter bus, popularly called Molue, with registration number, Anambra AE 311 AGU, fell at the 3rd Mainland Bridge, yesterday.
The accident, which left a motorcyclist identified as Mr. Olabode Samuel, a dispatch rider with a bureau de change, in Ikoyi, dead was attributed to the excessive speed of the bus driver.
Some of the victims who spoke with P.M.News blamed the driver of the bus for the accident. They said he was cautioned over his excessive speed, right from when the bus took off at Oshodi, but refused to heed the warning.
Mr. Obot Anieken, one of the victims told P.M.News that if the driver had heeded the warning, the accident would have been avoided. He emphasised that the driver had been misbehaving, even before they took off from Oshodi.
'When we left Oshodi for Oyingbo, we warned the driver over his excessive speed but he ignored all our warnings; look at where we ended up,' he added.
Narrating how the accident happened, Obot said the motorcyclist was in front of the speeding bus when the bus driver accelerated and kept his hand on the horn. In the process, nobody could recall what happened next. 'We saw the bus swerve and then fell on its side,' he said.
The question on the lips of everyone who witnessed the accident was how the motorcyclist, Mr. Olabode Samuel got burnt beyond recognition, since there was no fire around the area. Neither his motorcycle nor the bus caught fire during the incident.
The driver of the bus and his conductors were said to have disappeared after the accident. The injured persons were taken to the Lagos Island General Hospital while the charred body of the dispatch rider was taken to the Ikeja General Hospital morgue.
Commenting on the accident, Prince Adisa Bashua, Head of the Emergency Unit, LASTMA, attributed the accident to the excessive speed of the bus driver.