Highway robbers kill driver, injure passengers

Ekiti declares three-day prayers for dead varsity students
A commercial bus driver, simply identified as Muri, met his untimely death on Monday evening when daredevil robbers struck on Akure-Ilesa Expressway in Ondo State.

Muri, according to sources, used to ply Akure to Ilesa route before the unfortunate incident that turned Owena community in Osun State, where the driver hailed from, into mourning.

A source told The Guardian the armed robbers stopped Muri while operating on the high way, but he refused to pull his Toyota Hiace bus over. This, he said, irked the robbers, who shot sporadically at the bus, before it eventually swerved into the bush, inflicting severe injuries on the passengers.

Another source disclosed that police officers monitoring the highway were nowhere to be found when the incident occurred, but resurfaced some few minutes after.

It was gathered that members of vigilance group, commercial bus drivers and policemen from both Osun and Ondo states immediately mobilized to the scene but their effort to arrest the culprits were to no avail.

In another development, the Ekiti State government has declared three-day prayers for the repose of the soul of five students of the state university involved in a ghastly accident in front of the campus on Monday evening.

Governor Ayodele Fayose, who declared the three-day prayer, regretted the accident that sources said claimed seven lives, though the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Oye Bandele, confirmed that five students (four male, one female) died in the accident.

Two others were the driver of the commercial bus and a member of staff of a filing station in Iworoko area of Ado Ekiti, the state capital.Fayose, while on a sympathy visit to the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH), said the prayers were also meant to forestall a recurrence of such terrible incidences.Students of the university wore mournful look as one of the victims was said to have just finished his final examination.