Anguish trails Lokoja’s

As families and friends contend with the anguish of losing relations and loved ones so soon, some of the survivors of the accident, who are receiving treatment in various hospitals within the state, are in their last breath. Bukola Odebunmi’s case is perhaps most pathetic. A polytechnic fresh graduate with a distinction in Computer Science, […]

As families and friends contend with the anguish of losing relations and loved ones so soon, some of the survivors of the accident, who are receiving treatment in various hospitals within the state, are in their last breath.
Bukola Odebunmi’s case is perhaps most pathetic. A polytechnic fresh graduate with a distinction in Computer Science, her marriage had been fixed for next month, but as fate would have it, she had to depart this world as a spinster. How was she involved in the accident? Her younger sister, Sade Odebunmi, explained: “She was living with her fiancée in Lagos.
She came home just last week to know how far the family had gone with the preparation for her wedding. She went to Felele market to buy some foodstuff she had hoped to carry to Lagos the following day. Having bought the foodstuff, she was on her way home on a motor bike when the cement trailer crushed her, together with the commercial motorcyclist. They both died on the spot. I could not believe what I saw. She was crushed beyond recognition”.
Faisat was said to be a casual worker with the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Lokoja before she opted out some months ago to go into petty trading. She was among the roadside traders crushed to death during the accident. Faisat, according to her grief-stricken friend, Bola Adebola, had hoped to raise money to finance her university education before the unfortunate incident.
“Honestly, death has been so cruel to my Faisat. She was a very hardworking girl. She would have been a university student had she had money to sponsor her education. She was into petty trading so that she would be able to raise money for her proposed higher education. My friend could not have anticipated the tragedy that befell her on Tuesday. Just like every other human being, she looked forward to a brighter future, but unfortunately, she was cut short in her prime. I am saddened by the fact that she died without achieving her heartfelt desire,” she lamented.
Sixty-seven-year-old Salami Abdullahi, a second-hand cloth (okirika) dealer escaped the tragedy, but he now lives with the agony of losing his only child, Fatai, to the incident. Erratically wiping his tears with a handkerchief, Salami lamented: “Only God knows why this befell me. He was my only son.  His mother died three years ago. I did not know death would snatch him away from me so soon. On that fateful day, he was complaining of malaria early in the morning, and he even asked me to allow him to go home and rest, but I insisted he should just take some drugs I bought for him in the market. 
“Few minutes later, he told me he had recuperated, and that was why I left him to be attending to customers pending when I came back from a meeting at Adankolo area. I did not even get any information about the accident until I returned from the meeting. As I was approaching the market, I saw the whole place crowded with sympathisers who were crying. When I got an idea of what happened and could not even locate my business stand at the roadside, I became anxious about my child’s safety. I was later told that he was among those killed in the accident”.
Mr. Akeen Raji, a bereaved teacher, says the accident has robbed him of his hope of having an heir this year.  His marriage to Habibat in 2001 has been without any fruit of the womb. Habibat got pregnant this January and was brimming with the hope of experiencing childbirth ever in her life.
Unfortunately, that hope was dashed on Tuesday. How? Akeem narrates: “We got married nine years ago and since then, we have been battling with the challenge of childlessness. Despite too much pressure from my family to either divorce her or marry another wife, I continued to keep faith in God because Habibat was everything to me.
“It was this year’s January she conceived, and we were very much happy about it because many people had foreclosed our possibility of having a child. Of course, my wife was not among those killed in the accident, but the unexpected happened to her. As she was waiting to cross the road to join me at the other side where I parked my car, one of the vehicles cleared off the road by the trailer hit her at the back. She fainted, and right there on the spot, she had a miscarriage and that was how her three-month-old pregnancy got terminated, and she was later rushed to hospital”.  
Mallam Mudasiru Akano, a resident of Felele area of Lokoja, is weeping profusely, apparently lamenting his wife’s sudden death which he says happened before his naked eyes. “It was a very terrible accident, my friend. My wife and I were to go and board a vehicle to the town from the market. We had waited together for other passengers to arrive, but when she was complaining of pain on her legs, I asked her to enter the cab. The driver was looking for other passengers when the ill-fated trailer lost control and rammed into the cab. As we saw the trailer approaching us, we ran away for our lives, but my wife and two other passengers were trapped in the cab.
They both died before our very eyes. I must confess, Dangote trailer has inflicted too much pain on many families”, he asserted.    
Some of those who sustained injuries during the incident are bedridden in various hospitals in Lokoja.  33-year-old Rose Jonathan, a female soldier and one of the survivors currently receiving treatment at the Kogi State Specialist Hospital, says she was unconscious when she was evacuated to the hospital and regrets that the incident has constituted a setback to her career. How? She explains: “I was travelling from Abuja to Benin where I was supposed to attend a course during the week. We were all full of life and the journey from Abuja had been very smooth until we reached that point in Lokoja where the trailer was ramming into other vehicles on the road. I remember I was shouting Jesus, Jesus when our driver cried out for the tragedy that was to befall us. I must have fainted because I did not even know when I was rushed to this hospital. When I regained consciousness, I was asking people what brought us there. I learnt that only two of us survived in the bus.
“Do you know how I survived? I wanted to take a front seat before we took off in Abuja, but a male passenger outsmarted me and that was how I unhappily took the last seat at the back. That man died in the accident, she explained.
Mr Sunday Olayemi, a taxi driver who is also bedridden at the Specialist Hospital, describes his survival as miraculous. He, however, anticipates a very hard living condition ahead. This, according to him, is because his taxi, which was completely wrecked by the trailer, was his only means of his livelihood.
“I did not bargain for this. With my taxi, I went out for business as early as 6.00am; it was a market day in the area. I just suddenly saw the trailer ramming into many of the vehicles on the road one by one in my front. Immediately I realised that it had cleared away the last vehicle before mine, I began to say my last prayer. I was the only one inside my cab that time because I had just offloaded my passengers, hoping to look for another one. All the passengers in some of the vehicles that were crushed died on the spot. I saw human beings breaking into pieces.
“I was trapped inside my cab. In fact, for me to have survived, it took the quick intervention of passers-by and other rescuers who smashed my cab with axes to bring me out of it. If you see my cab after the incident, you would not believe that I survived. Well, I give glory to Almighty God for sparing my life.
At the scene of the accident Tuesday, the situation turned a bit dramatic as angry residents and traders nearly mobbed the state deputy governor Phillip Salawu who was there on a condolence visit.  To escape being stoned by the angry mob, he hurriedly disappeared from the scene. Some of the angry residents said they wanted to vent their anger on the deputy governor because of the delay in the commissioning of the newly constructed international market in Lokoja by the state government. They revealed that traders were in 2006 temporarily relocated to Felele market where the accident occurred, arguing that if the international market had been commissioned by the government, the accident could have been averted.
The irate mob also set another on-coming trailer ablaze, while several others resorted to carting away all the bags of cement from the ill-fated Dangote trailer.
The driver of the ill-fated vehicle, who is yet to be identified, was among those said to be seriously injured and receiving treatment in one of the hospitals in Lokoja. But efforts by our correspondent to get him were unsuccessful as doctors and nurses in most of the hospitals visited refused to disclose his identity.
Governor Ibrahim Idris, who was at the Specialist Hospital and the Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja, Wednesady on a condolence visit, promised to foot the medical bills of all the victims of the accident. He also urged traders across the state to desist from transacting business at roadsides.
Our correspondent could not speak to the Chief Medical Director of the Specialist Hospital Lokoja, Professor John Enekele Onuminya as he said to have been sacked a day after the incident following allegations of misconduct by the hospital’s workers. But Dr Emmanuel Adugba, director of clinical services of the hospital, said apart from three victims who died while receiving treatment, others were responding positively to treatment.
Residents have urged the state government to commission the international market so that traders would no longer have cause to transact business on roadsides.
The sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) Mr Yomi Asniyan wants the government to close down Felele market with immediate effect because of its proximity to the road, while the Vice-Chairman of the Lokoja Local Government Area, Lawrence Ikuboroje, appeals to the relevant authorities in the country to complete the on-going dualisation of the Abuja-Lokoja road to forestall a reoccurrence of such an incident.