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Two die, others injured in Ogun road accidents

By Femi Ibirogba and Oluwaseun Akingboye, Akure
02 August 2018   |   3:56 am
Two persons, including a woman, died on Wednesday in accidents that occurred separately on roads in Ogun State. The first accident, which occurred in Owode-Ijako corridor of the old Lagos-Abeokuta road, left a motorcyclist dead when a hit- and-run vehicle knocked him down atop his Boxer motorcycle .....

The Ondo youths protesters at Ore

• Mass protest in Ogbomosho over bad spots on Ibadan-Ilorin highway
• Ondo youths grind Benin-Ore-Lagos expressway to halt over outage

Two persons, including a woman, died on Wednesday in accidents that occurred separately on roads in Ogun State. The first accident, which occurred in Owode-Ijako corridor of the old Lagos-Abeokuta road, left a motorcyclist dead when a hit- and-run vehicle knocked him down atop his Boxer motorcycle with registration number QS291AGL.

The body of the motorcyclist have been kept at the morgue of the State Hospital, Ifo.Also, the second accident, which involved a Hyundai car marked KJA 256 CK and a parked truck with registration number FST 202 XT, resulted in the death of a woman and injury to two other persons.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE), Babatunde Akinbiyi, who confirmed the separate accidents, said while the first accident was the result of reckless driving, the second followed a “loss of control.” He said the body of the dead have been taken to the State General Hospital, Isara, while the accident vehicles were towed to Ode-Remo police station, Ogun State.

Meanwhile, residents of Ogbomosho, Oyo State, staged a peaceful protest against the abandonment of the Ibadan-Ilorin expressway yesterday. Vehicular movement was prevented, while protesters expressed dissatisfaction over the abandoned construction of the Oyo-Ogbomosho axis of the road.

Vehicles coming from Oyo and from Ilorin, Kwara State, were prevented from passing through Ogbomosho, leading to a traffic gridlock on the expressway. Ibadan-Oyo and Ogbomosho-Ilorin axes of the road have been completed almost a decade ago, with several repairs already carried out on them, while Oyo-Ogbomosho portion of the project is far from being completed, resulting in several auto crashes yearly.

Articulated vehicles, commercial and private cars were prevented from coming in and going out of the town until after 12noon. An eyewitness said commercial and transportation activities in the township were paralysed, and some commercial banks closed operations for fear of being attacked.

The old existing road between Oyo and Ogbomosho also cries for repairs, for there are several failed portions on the road road due to pressure from articulated vehicles and tankers. The pressure on the road is aggravated by Nigeria’s inability to fix and upgrade the existing railroads, hence the deplorable state of most of the roads.

Also, irate youths under the auspices of United Action Democracy (UAD) crunched the free flow of traffic at the Benin-Ore-Lagos Expressway, lamenting the disconnection of more than 300 communities from the power grid by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC).

The youths from the South Senatorial District of Ondo State yesterday assembled themselves massively to Ore, the headquarters of Odigbo LGA of the state, causing heavy traffic gridlock in the highway for more than five hours.

Mobilizing themselves mainly from Irele, Okitipupa, Ilaje, Ese-Odo and some parts of Odigbo LGAs, they started gathering as early as 7:00a.m, paralyzing commercial activities, movement of persons and vehicles in the area and suburbs.

Nonetheless, security agencies including the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC) and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) were at the scene to mitigate the effects of the protest.

They decried the insensitive attitude of Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and the state government, revealing that the continued power outage in the communities had plunged the residents to cesspool of unemployment and increasing rate of crime in the areas.

Leader of the group, Kunle Ajayi, stressed that the youths resorted to the action because previous attempts to dialogue with government and the BEDC authority had hit the rock. According to him, the distribution company deliberately cut off the district from the National Grid because of its indifference to human plights and disregard for the rule of law.

Consequently, he noted that the major disconnection in December 2014 had caused several loss of job and closure of businesses, especially the small and medium scale businesses due to unavailability of power supply. He faulted the excuses by BEDC that the subscribers in the areas were owing the company, saying that the disconnection does not justify the mass disconnection meted on customers who never defaulted in the payment of their bills.

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