Posted by By CHRISTOPHER OJI on
Members of the public, including security operatives, could not hold back tears last Friday, as one of the survivors of the recent attack by men suspected to be members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in Iyana-Ipaja area of Lagos, Abel Iwasanmi, narrated his ordeals in the hands of the evil men.
Members of the public, including security operatives, could not hold back tears last Friday, as one of the survivors of the recent attack by men suspected to be members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in Iyana-Ipaja area of Lagos, Abel Iwasanmi, narrated his ordeals in the hands of the evil men.
They were overwhelmed by emotion and grief as he recounted how human beings were burnt while they were fast asleep.
Motor park operators blamed the mayhem on OPC members, who, they said, stormed the area with jerry cans of petrol with the sole aim of roasting the drivers and conductors while they were sleeping in their vehicles.
Iwasanmi, who was still in shock when Daily Sun visited, said: "I witnessed the whole thing from the beginning to the end. I am a bus conductor. I sleep in the bus at the close of work. I had gone to answer the call of nature at about 2.45 behind the garage. As I was easing myself, I saw about four buses that stormed the garage. The buses were loaded with heavily armed men."
He said he noticed the men alighting from the buses, moving from one bus to the other, in search of occupants of such buses.
"They immediately went about dousing the vehicle with sleeping occupants, with fuel. If they searched a bus and found no one in it, they moved to another one until they found one with someone sleeping in it," he said.
According to him, that was how they succeeded in dousing most of the vehicles with petrol and setting them ablaze.
He explained that some occupants of the vehicles that tried to escape were shot and their bodies thrown into the burning vehicles.
"I heard people weeping, crying for help but I was helpless. If I had tried to render any assistance, the same fate would have befallen me. "Most of the people that were burnt were asleep. My friend, Agboola, was snoring when I passed by his bus to ease myself. He was burnt. Another one, Wasiu was also burnt. He was drunk before he went to sleep, if not, maybe, he would have managed to escape."
As the victims were roasting in fire, the OPC men were said to be chanting victory songs. "You can imagine what they have reduced human beings to. Human beings were burning and they were rejoicing, making fun."
Iwasanmi explained that when the invaders were satisfied that they had successfully accomplished their mission of burning the victims, the leader commanded that other vehicles in the car park be burnt.
He added: "When they exhausted the fuel they brought, they started smashing other vehicles in sight."
Another survivor, Taye Oladimeji, told Daily Sun how he woke up his conductor but as they were running for safety, the latter was hit by bullet. But he managed to escape.