Eight die in Ogun road accident

Eight persons died yesterday while two others, comprising an expectant mother and a toddler, were injured in Ogun State.

The accident occurred opposite the police post on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway at Ewekoro.

It involved a Toyota Corolla sport car with registration number (Lagos) AKD 649 FP, which rammed into a parked truck by the roadside.

The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE) Babatunde Akinbiyi attributed the accident to “speeding and loss of control”.

Akinbiyi said 10 persons, comprising four males, four females and two kids, were in the car when the accident occurred.

He said eight of them died, while the remaining two were injured.

The TRACE spokesman added that the remains of the dead were kept at the morgue of the State General Hospital in Ifo.

Akinbiyi said: “The driver, who is suspected to be drunk and speeding, lost control of the vehicle and rammed into a stationery trailer parked on the roadside. He killed eight persons inside the vehicle.

“Though the driver of the parked trailer was not in the truck when the accident happened, he reported himself and has been arrested by operatives of Ewekoro divisional police peadquarters.

“The expectant mother among the survivors has been referred to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) at Idi-Aba in Abeokuta, the state capital, for treatment.

“While TRACE corps commiserates with the family of the dead, drivers are once again admonished to avoid speeding, overloading and drunk-driving. In the same vein, indiscriminate parking of vehicles on the traffic corridor with reckless abandonment will no longer be tolerated.