There was panic on Thursday evening as a fully-loaded fuel truck belonging to Conoil, crashed and blocked the outbound lane of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, creating fear of another imminent explosion on the road.
The head of the unregistered truck, suspected to be loaded with petrol, was crushed in the impact making the tank to burst, while the content gushed out on the road.
Eyewitnesses told PUNCH METRO that the accident was caused by officials of the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, when they attempted to cross the road in their vehicle from the outbound lane of the expressway to the inbound lane.
One of the eyewitnesses, who identified himself simply as Suleiman, a commercial motorcyclist, said he was there when the TRACE officials stopped a tipper driver in an attempt to cross to the other side of the expressway.
He said, “When the TRACE officials asked him to stop, the tipper driver applied break and the fuel tanker, which was on top speed behind it, rammed the tipper and the fuel started gushing out from the 33,000-litre tanker.
“The uniformed officials immediately ran away. Perhaps they thought the driver had died. Even the tipper it hit sped away from the scene.”
Our correspondent learnt that the unidentified truck driver did not sustain any serious injury. Eyewitnesses said he was alone in the truck when the accident occurred.
Another truck driver, Johnson Francis, told PUNCH METRO that when the driver was helped out of the wrecked tanker, he headed for an undisclosed police station to complain about the action of the officials who allegedly caused the accident.
However, the head of the Mowe-Ibafo Unit Command of TRACE, Mr. Olugbenga Aderibigbe, who was at the scene, told our correspondent that he was not aware of the involvement of the corps.
He said,“I am not aware of the involvement of the corps. It may be our people from Akute. It cannot be our officials from Mowe-Ibafo. I cannot confirm whether their allegation is true or not because as eyewitnesses, they are in the best position to say what they saw.
“What I can tell you is that, if they were actually TRACE officials, they might be from the Ojodu or Akute unit.”
While traffic on the lane on which the accident occurred was at a standstill for more than five hours, officials of the Ogun State Fire Service, who came to the scene shortly after the accident, poured water on the tanker, in anticipation of an explosion.
The officials of both the Lagos and Ogun states command of the Federal Road Safety Corps were also on hand to ease the gridlock.
The Unit Commander of FRSC, Mowe Unit Command, Mr. Olalekan Morakinyo, told our correspondent that officials of Conoil had been invited.
Morakinyo said, “We want to trans-load the content to another vehicle because as it were, this tanker cannot be towed from this place, there would be fire disaster. After trans-loading, we would move the vehicle.
“Meanwhile, we want to divert the traffic from the Lagos end. It is not safe for the vehicles and people on the hold-up. That is why a truck of the fire service is on standby in order to douse any fire that may ignite.”
Meanwhile, the FRSC officials later devised a way of getting the vehicles that were on the lane off. Motorists were told to push their vehicles past the fuel tanker rather than turn on their ignitions.
The officials said that was to ensure that the fuel tanker was not ignited in anyway by heat from the exhaust pipes of passing vehicles.
PUNCH METRO learnt that the heavy vehicular traffic was compounded by the large numbers of youth corps members who were travelling out of Lagos after Thursday’s passing out parade.
As at the time of filing this report, about six hours later, the traffic on the outbound lane was still impregnable.
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