14 killed in Kogi road crash
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Fourteen persons were said to have lost their lives in a ghastly motor accident which occurred on Magongo-Okene road in Kogi State.
The state Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Godwin Omiko, told newsmen in Lokoja yesterday the accident happened Wednesday night, at about 10:15 and it involved three vehicles.
Omiko said the victims were mostly public health officers under the employment of the Local Government Service Commission in Kaduna State.
According to him, the public health officers were 400-level students travelling to Cotonou, Republic of Benin, to write their first semester examination at Houdegbe North American University, adding that a female child on the trip, with her mother, was also killed in the crash.
He said the accident occurred when a Toyota bus with registration number Kogi LG 25 DAH rammed into an oncoming Toyota Hiace passenger bus with registration number Lagos AAA 463 XD, which also hit another vehicle in the front.
Due to the heavy impact, the FRCS commander said the passenger bus immediately caught fire, burning 14 passengers beyond recognition.
Omiko said that three victims, including a female child, were rescued alive by FRSC officials but the child later died in the hospital few hours after.
According to him, those who lost their lives included eight men and six women.
According to him, 12 of the victims had been given mass burial at the public cemetery at Magongo, in the presence of policemen from Ogori police division, while corpses of the female child and two other male adults were deposited at the morgue of the General Hospital, Obangede.
He said one Idris Abdulahi, the driver of the Toyota Hiace bus with Kogi registration number, believed to be responsible for the crash had been arrested and is now in police custody, as preliminary investigation revealed that he drove recklessly due to alcohol intake.
