Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
Vehicular movements and entry and exit from Onitsha to Asaba were made impossible following an incident that claimed the lives of three persons in Onitsha, the commercial hub of Anambra State.
A lorry driver killed three persons while trying to escape from unidentified revenue officials of the Anambra State Revenue Agency.
Ikengaonline gathered that the incident occurred yesterday at the Onitsha end of the Niger Bridge near the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s sculpture.
An eyewitness said that the lorry driver who was conveying 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 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.
The eyewitness who narrated the incident said: “As soon as they (Anambra State revenue agents) jumped 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 injuries.”
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 degrees of injuries.
The eyewitness further said that “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 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 escaped along with his colleagues to avoid being mobbed.
