Four
persons, including two policemen and a road-side vulcanizer died,
yesterday, at New Auto Tyres Market, at Nkpor, Idemili North Local
Government Area of Anambra State, near the commercial city of Onitsha in
a ghastly motor accident involving a convoy of bank bullion van and
other commercial vehicles.
The incident
which occurred at about 10 a.m., involving five vehicles at a time,
including two articulated trucks, the bullion van, its Toyota Hilux
escort, Mercedes Benz 911 truck and a Chevrolet bus, caused a gridlock
along Enugu/Onitsha expressway.
According
to the source, the bullion van and its escort Hilux van heading towards
Awka, the state capital, from the Onitsha end, apparently conveying an
unspecified amount of money to Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, branch were
on high speed when one of the bullion van’s tyres blew out.
Eye
witnesses told Vanguard that the bullion van swerved towards the right
side of the expressway and the driver lost control and hit a moving
Mercedes Benz 911 lorry with number plate Delta XA 928 ASB which led to
the dismantling of the two front tyres and other components of the lorry
as it fell into a drainage.
The escort vehicle,
with number plate AAA 87 BZ, while trying to dodge the bullion van, hit
the back of an articulated truck parked by the side of the drainage,
killing two policemen on the spot while others were critically injured.
The
Mercedes Benz 911 hit by the bullion van, in turn hit another parked
truck which hit the Chevrolet bus before they all rolled into the
drainage.
As the uncontrollable crowd was battling
to recover the bodies of dead victims and at the same time rescuing the
injured ones, the source said, some policemen quickly brought in a
towing van which recovered the damaged bullion van, leaving the Hilux
van which was damaged beyond repairs with blood stain.
The
corpses of the two policemen, that of the vulcanizer and one other
suspected to be either a driver or conductor of one of the lorries, were
moved to a nearby mortuary, while the injured were conveyed to a nearby
hospital.
The Nteje Unit Commander of the Federal
Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Mr. Sunday Joseph, who confirmed the
incident in a telephone chat with newsmen, however, said he was aware of
the death of only one policeman, while 11 others were injured.
Joseph
also confirmed that the cause of the incident was over-speeding and
dangerous over-taking by the bullion van, arguing that its tyre did not
blow out before the incident, but after.
In
another development, the Onitsha Unit Commander of the FRSC, Mr. Anthony
Metta also confirmed that a commercial bus knocked down a commercial
motorcyclist and his passenger at the Bridge-head end of the
Enugu/Onitsha expressway yesterday morning, injuring the two of them.
Metta
told newsmen also in a telephone chat that the driver abandoned his
vehicle and fled the scene as soon as he knocked down the duo, adding
that when some soldiers on patrol and FRSC officials took the injured
motorcyclists to St. Charles Borromeo Hospital with the abandoned
commercial bus, for urgent medical attention, the driver later later
mobilizsed his fellow drivers and trooped to the hospital premises and
held the FRSC officials hostage for dare using his bus to take the
injured ones to the hospital.
