Seventeen students are feared dead in the Ojodu area of Lagos State after a white delivery truck ran into them on Tuesday afternoon.
The accident happened along Isheri Road, just before the Ojodu Police Station.
The truck was allegedly chased by officials of Lagos State Traffic Management Agency LASTMA when it rammed into children returning from school killing 17 in the process.
An eyewitness said the accident which occurred at about 2pm claimed the lives of 17 students with others injured from the scene.
The victims, according to the eyewitness, are students of Ojodu Grammar School.
Another account claimed that “15 students are dead already and still counting” even though official casualty figures have not been announced by security and emergency officials.
While the cause of the accident is yet to be known, Eons Intelligence, an emergency alert provider, said “reports indicate that activities of Road safety & VIO led to an articulated vehicle losing control, killing several schoolchildren, injured others in Ojodu Berger Lagos, axis.”
Some video footage from the scene showed a crowd of people who have taken over the road extending to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in protest of the loss of student lives.
Eons Intelligence warns that the “area is volatile with personnel from RRS using tear gas to disperse people. Avoid the area.”
Reports said some students have attacked and destroyed trucks and vehicles belonging to the VIO office in the area.
A riot broke out when policemen deployed in the scene fired tear gas canisters to disperse the crowd.
Angry youths subsequently broke the windscreens of about 10 trucks plying the road and beat up one of the drivers.
Bonfires were also made on Aina Street, close to the Ojodu Police Station.
Several parents, amid tears, paced around the scene of the incident, looking for their children.
“I have not seen my two children. One is in JSS1, while the other is in JSS2. They are Nafisat and Abdulqowiyu Amusan. We live in Lambe (Ogun State),” one of the distraught mothers lamented.
She later called one of our correspondents back on the telephone that the children were found at the Lagos State Accident and Emergency Centre, Ojota.
However, Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, said the number of casualty was yet to be ascertain while normalcy has returned to the area.
Also, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has said that its’ officials were not involved in the accident.
Route Commander Olabisi Sonusi FRSC Public Education Officer in a Statement said :” An articulated truck was said to have lost control at Grammar School Bus stop along Ogunnusi road, Lagos today Tuesday 7th December, 2021 which caused the death of unverified number of students and leaving many injured.
“The men of FRSC were called upon by passersby to help intervene after the crash had happened.
About seven of the victims were rescued and immediately taken to Lagos State Emergency Centre Ojota by FRSC personnel while another road user helped in carrying about seven also to the same emergency centre.
“The general public should disregard the disgruntled information been circulated by some unscrupulous element that FRSC men caused the crash.
“We want to place on record that our men were not in any way involved in the cause of the crash as patrol activities was not ongoing along that axis as at the time of the crash”.
