By Ayo Kehinde
Ajala Bus Stop, along Lagos -Abeokuta Expressway in Ijaye area of Lagos state was the scene of a fatal accident on Wednesday, when an OP MESA, Army van, plunged into roadside food sellers, leaving two dead and five others with severe multiple injuries.
The dead, according to eyewitnesses were one “Iya Agbado”, woman corn seller and “Iya Pomo”, woman skin hide seller, while three others who sustained broken legs and limbs were also women selling bread and roast corn by the road side on the junction of Oguntona Street by Ajala Bus Stop.
A mechanic who was still awaiting attendance by the time Thisage correspondent arrived the scene had bruises all over his body and deep cuts in his right leg.
A Lagos Neighbourhood Watch officer who identified himself as Lekan told Thisage that from information he gathered, the driver of the army van lost control of the steering and rammed into a nearby ‘faragon’ bus in a mechanic workshop by the Oguntona street junction.
“It the bus that broke its speed as it swept the victims into a gutter, otherwise it would have verred into nearby buildings before coming to a stop,” he said, adding that “one woman died on the spot while another is in critical condition.” Before the reporter left the scene, news came that this other critically injured victim, had died.
Eyewitnesses confirmed Lekan’s account, except that some other confirmed witnesses added that two Custom patrol vehicles were also in the ‘convoy’ with the crashed army van, speeding down the road before the accident occurred.
The Injured mechanic, his assistant and a crowd of onlookers and sympathisers
An assistant of the injured mechanic said; “Oga, they were driving in speed when the army van bumped into a pothole before we saw the van veered off and carried the women into the gutter”.
One Mrs Bola who narrowly cheated death, simple said: “ I cannot explain well how it happened. I just heard a loud sound and then the next thing I saw was the army van carrying the women near me into the gutter” Smashed remains of foodstuffs littered the accident scene.
Another seller, who escaped by instinct, said, she got up minutes before the accident to ease herself and by the time she came back, ”all my plastic buckets, plates and cups were destroyed.”
The Police, Neigbourhood Watch officers joined the soldiers to calm the seething crowd as tempers rose now and then, particularly when the eldest son of the deceased cowhide seller demanded to know what would become of the fate of him and his siblings.
Then one of the soldiers calmly followed him and his siblings to the nearby Longing Hospital on Joseph Close, off Oguntona street, where her late mother was laid in the morgue.
“Look the GOC is aware of what has happened and every detail of what would be done next would be conveyed to you,” he told the bereaved and they calmed down, though the women amongst them could not be consoled; they wailed and rolled on the ground.
At about 5: 25 pm, an ambulance with registration number LSR 335 AU, arrived.
Earlier, two army van with registration numbers HQ 241 CS and HQ 242 CS had taken the injured away from Longing Hospital to the military hospital in Ikeja.
