It was another sad tale of mourning on Sunday in Awka, Anambra State when tragedy struck near the Anambra State Government House, after an accident by Finotel Agu-Awka Junction, along Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, Awka involving a truck claimed the lives of a couple and their first son.
The couple, with their four children was travelling back to their base in Enugu State after a weekend in their Ukwu, Anambra hometown, when the incident happened.
The father was identified as Mr. Ikechukwu Odinegwe.
According to eyewitnesses, the couple stopped to refill their car at a filling station at Agu Awka around 2pm, when a trailer on top speed rammed into their car on their way out of the fuel station.
The couple’s vehicle was mangled. (See Pictures Below: Viewers discretion is advised)
Passersby and officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps had to deploy every means to bring out the occupants of the vehicle.
While the couple and their first son were brought out dead from the vehicle, three of their children were in critical condition and were rushed to a nearby hospital.
An eyewitness said, “It was even a miracle that some people were brought out of the vehicle alive, considering the way the vehicle was mangled and the speed of the trailer.
“It was clear that the trailer’s brake failed, because the people around were flagging down the driver of the trailer to slow down but he continued speeding until this happened.”
The truck driver reportedly ran away after the accident.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Uche Eze, when contacted on the telephone, said he had not been briefed about the accident.
He said, “You said the accident happened around 2pm, it is 4pm now; it will take some time for our men in the field to brief me about it. So, I am not aware of it for now.”
Police officers at the scene of the accident, who asked not to be identified, said they would soon pass their report to their superiors.
Governor Obiano and wife, Osodieme were reported to have visited Regina Caeli Hospital to see the survivors of the ghastly accident.
It is noteworthy however that the state Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, had on June 3rd banned articulated vehicles from plying the state’s roads in the day time, following the fuel tanker accident in Onitsha that claimed no fewer than 85 lives.
Source: Punchng.com; Lindaikeji.
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This is one deadly accident too many in Anambra and elsewhere in Nigeria. As the Igbos say, when another person’s corpse is being carried, it seems like ordinary fire wood to onlookers. But in the Anambra case, a family has been virtually wiped out, making the survivor a wreck all his life. Is there something we do not know about all these that is inherent cause of these terrible and unspeakable accidents? My heart truly bleeds, to think that these are but avoidable carnages.
Does anyone need to teach the so-called road experts, whether FRSC or the Nigeria Police, that those expressways approaching and emptying directly into the city should be abridged with speed breakers from afar off? And that they should closely monitor the trucks and other articulated vehicles? The way these uniformed guys pursue these vehicles when they site them, leaves a soar taste in the mouth… surely they pursue them not for the safety or our roads, but for the security of their pockets…which some times could directly or indirectly lead to such accidents.
You can be sure that after this, and when we are through with all the usual photo-show of sympathy and formal government empty concerns, it will be a matter of time…but God will save his own.
I recommend a thorough probe of this blood-chilling accident.