Tragedy struck on Sunday along Okene bypass, on the Okene-Lokoja highway in Kogi State when a truck belonging to Dangote Group plying ‘one way’ rammed into an oncoming passenger bus, killing all 19 onboard, THE WITNESS reports.
Recall, in March, a mixer truck owned by Dangote crushed a woman to death in Abule Egba area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria after the driver lost control due to brake failure. The truck, with registration number KANO MDB 531 XA, was said to have climbed the woman inward Mobil Filling Station beside Jubilee Bridge, opposite Zenith Bank on Monday.
A statement on Sunday by the spokesman of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, ACM Jonas Agwu, said the Okene crash involved two vehicles, comprising a Dangote Truck with registration number NSH680YJ, and a Toyota Hiace bus (KMC455ZE).
Agwu said that the “Toyota Hiace bus which departed from Kano was on its lane on the highway when the Dangote truck driver from Port Harcourt wrongfully overtook a vehicle and collided head-on with the bus.
“The impact of the collision resulted in a fire inferno that burnt the victims to death.
“The crash which was caused by route violation called ‘one way’ and wrongful overtaking, involved 22 people, all male. Unfortunately, 19 people out of the 22 victims were killed and one injured. The remaining two victims who got rescued by FRSC operatives without injuries survived the crash because they complied with traffic regulations on compulsory use of seatbelt.
“The corpses of the dead victims whose lives were claimed by the crash have been deposited at Okene General Hospital.”
