6 persons burnt to death on Sagamu/Benin Expressway
By Abiodun Lawal
No fewer than six persons were reportedly burnt to death on Wednesday in a multiple accident involving a container laden truck and two commercial buses at J4, Ogbere area on the Sagamu-Benin Expressway.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the accident occurred less than 24 hours after nine persons lost their lives when a luxury bus rammed into a stationary truck at Aseese end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The Sagamu/Benin accident was said to have occurred at around 2:15 p.m. at a section of the road where there was a diversion of traffic to a single lane.
Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, the spokesperson of the Ogun Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE), who confirmed the accident, said 10 others persons suffered varying degrees of injury.
Akinbiyi added that the operatives of the state road safety agency at the scene, said the driver of the truck, travelling toward Benin, overtook another vehicle wrongly and rammed into one of the buses coming from the opposite direction.
He said the second bus also travelling in the opposite direction, equally rammed into the two vehicles, almost immediately.
Akinbiyi explained that fire broke out from the trunk of the truck, due to the impact of the accident.
“16 people were involved in the accident; six were burnt beyond recognition while 10 others escaped with varying degrees of injury.
“Out of the three vehicles involved in the accident, our operatives could only get the number plate of one of the commercial buses as BDG 06 XP,” he said.
He said the injured were receiving treatment at the Ijebu Ode General Hospital where the corpses had been deposited at the mortuary.
