11 Passengers Burnt to Death in Ondo Road Accident

Fidelis David in Akure

No fewer than 11 persons were burnt to death yesterday in a road accident at Soka Bridge in Ore, the headquarters of Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

THISDAY gathered that the victims whose identities could not be ascertained as of the time of filing this report died in the crash, which involved a trailer and a Marcopollo bus.

The Federal Road Safety Corps, Unit Commander in Ore, Mr. Sikiru Alonge, said that the accident was caused by one way driving by the trailer.

He said: “The trailer passed through one way and in the process collided with the Marcopollo bus which is coming Benin road.The bus caught fire in the process. He said the incident caused traffic congestion along the route and all the eleven persons were burnt beyond recognition.

“The fire has been extinguished, while the traffic is being controlled on the Benin/Lagos Lane. Efforts are on top gear with other security agencies to remove crashed vehicles from the road,” Alonge said.

He, however, urged motorists to always obey all traffic rules to avert further tragedy.

In another developmnt, the operatives of the Ondo State Security Network Agency, codenamed Amotekun, have arrested 80 suspected criminals in the last three weeks.

Out of these suspects arrested, thirty- six of them were paraded before journalists last weekend, at the headquarters of the corps in Akure.

Parading the suspects,  the State Commander of Amotekun Corps,  Mr. Adetunji Adeleye, said among the suspects were four persons who allegedly invaded the farm of a Peoples’ Democratic Party Chieftain and destroyed cassava plantation worth N10 million.

He said: “In the last three weeks, 80 suspected criminals were arrested. In the last one week, about 32 were taken to court for prosecution, investigations are going on in most of these ones and some of them at the end of the day were found to be victims of circumstances.

“Like those that comes out without a means of identification at odd hours and are found where they are not supposed to be, those ones upon proper interrogation were released to go, some were released on bail.”

He added that the suspects including women engaged in various criminal activities ranging from murder, to anti grazing, stealing of motorcycles, stealing of grinding machine, stealing of Keke Napep, stealing of various houses household equipment, including generator, and armed robbery.

“Majority of these ones that we are parading today, having concluded the investigations, some of them will be going to court, early in the week next week. This is what we have been able to put together since last three weeks.”

“Criminal is criminal, regardless of where they come from, we don’t want to give color to criminality, a criminal is a criminal. Once you engage in criminal activities, the signal we are sending is that Ondo State a place where you can thrive as a criminal, the criminals should better leave Ondo State, not only within the town, but within the forest.

“Some of these criminals were arrested right inside the forest. Again, the anti-open grazing law is in force in Ondo State where we discouraged the use of under-aged for grazing, especially when they engage in destruction of farm products.

“Some of them engaged in very massive destruction, we arrested some of those that  were engaged in the destruction of one of the principal officers PDP that went viral, saying that his farm was destroyed, we caught them and we brought them to book, they are part of those people who are being paraded here, 4 of them were involved.”

Adeleye also lamented the increasing cases of missing people in Akure.

“In the last two weeks, we observed increase in the rate of missing people within the town. And our discreet investigations reveal that most of these people board Okada that are not registered with SITA and are not registered with the Okada association, even their bikes are not registered at all, so it becomes very difficult to identify them and majority of the victims that manage to escape that we interrogate thereafter, told us that those people that kidnapped put in hoods and put helmet on it,” he added.