Black Saturday: 26 perish in Lagos-Ibadan Highway auto crash

Twenty-SIX people, including some teenagers, perished on Lagos-Ibadan highway, on Saturday, as two 18-seater commuter buses collided in an early morning crash.

Eleven others, seven males, one female and three children, were among those critically injured.

Survivors speak

One of the survivors, a middle-aged woman, Mrs Ore Babarinde, told Sunday Tribune that she and her children, Alex and Inioluwa, were travelling to Lagos from Abuja upon receiving a call that her husband died on Friday.

She said family members were monitoring them through telephone calls and were waiting to receive them in Lagos.

All she could recall to Sunday Tribune was a loud bang that accompanied the collision between the two buses. She and her children sustained head injuries and were being attended to at Ibadan Central Hospital, Ososami as of Saturday night.

The widow, who lost N30, 000, two cellphones and their luggage to the incident, thanked God for sparing the entire family from being wiped off through the accident.

Another survivor, David Mbang’s legs were broken and had been transferred to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, with his two-year-old son whose right hand was broken in the incident.

The other son of Mbang, Victor, whom his father tried desperately to save did not survive. He was one of those burnt beyond identification.

Relations of the Mbangs told Sunday Tribune that the man and his sons were coming from Jwantu village in Southern Kaduna, where David had gone to bury his wife who died two weeks ago.

The accident, which occurred opposite Motherless ‘Babies’ Home at Quarry area, a few kilometres from the old Toll Gate in Ibadan, Oyo State, at about 7:00 a.m., was said to have been caused by overspeeding.

An eye witness told Sunday Tribune that the buses, a fully loaded Toyota Hiace bus, popularly called Hummer bus, and another Mazda bus, also loaded, were travelling in opposing directions when they collided and caught fire instantly.

The registration numbers of the two vehicles were lost to the fire.

Men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Oluyole Unit Command, who moved to the scene to rescue the passengers, salvaged 11 survivors, as others had been burnt beyond recognition.

An FRSC patrol vehicle did two trips from the scene to the morgue in Adeoyo State Hospital, with the back of the van filled with burnt bodies on  each trip.

As the van drove through Ibadan, bystanders who caught a glimpse of the heaps of charred bodies in the van, burst into tears, while many kept their hands on their heads on seeing the bodies.

Head of FRSC Media Unit in Abuja, Bisi Kazeem, who confirmed the accident to Sunday Tribune, said the injured were taken to Ibadan Central Hospital and the University College Hospital (UCH) for medical attention.

According to another eyewitness, the two 18-seater buses had a head-on collision and caught fire immediately.

“All the passengers in the two buses were burnt beyond recognition.

“Only a baby escaped death because the father of the child threw him out through the window of the bus,’’ the witness told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Odude visited the scene.

Police Public Relations Officer ( PPRO) , Oyo State Police Command, Superintendent of Police, Adekunle Ajisebutu also confirmed the number of deaths.

In a related development, the FRSC, Plateau Command, says it will from Monday clampdown on drivers using phones while driving on the highways.

The Sector Commander, Corps Commander Pat Emeordi, who stated this on Saturday while briefing newsmen in Jos, said anyone caught would pay a fine of N4, 000.

Emeordi said that the FRSC Establishment Act 2007, Section 10 (4), prohibits the use of phones while driving for obvious reasons.

“When people drive and make calls or do text messages, it causes distractions and everyone knows that driving requires a 100 per cent concentration.

“But the sad thing is that many people, including those who are supposed to know, are defaulting. We are saying that the act should stop.