Valentine Day tragedy: Truck crushes two undergraduates

It was a pathetic sight at Okesa area of Ado Ekiti on Thursday, Valentine’s Day as two undergraduates met their death when a sand truck crushed them after they had fallen in a motorcycle accident in the area.

The tragedy, which occurred at about 4:00 p.m. on the day, involved Ebenezer Ayoade, a final year Marketing student of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti and Ajayi Kayode, a 200 level Psychology student of the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti.

Sources said the victims, who were both natives of Emure-Ekiti, headquarters of Emure Local Government Area of Ekiti State, rode on the new motorcycle that had collided with another commercial motorcycle near the Ado area command headquarters of the state police command.

The sources added that while they were helping themselves up from the road where they had fallen, an on-coming tipper lorry, which was descending the Okesa junction slope, ran over them and instantly killed one of them while the other died on the way to the hospital.

The incident, which occurred just as civil servants at the nearby Old Governor’s Office and other government offices were closing from work, drew scores of sympathisers with some of them blaming the accident on what they described as “excitement from the brand new motorcycle.” They claimed that they had hit the Okesa – Old Governor’s Office road on a high speed, and meandered through the traffic.

Sources added that the driver of the tipper truck with registration number Abuja XN 367 ABJ, “did not even know that he had crushed some motorcyclists because he was just going, oblivious of the accident and the two dying persons.”

One of the sympathisers claimed that “when policemen and others stopped the driver as he was ascending the hill towards Oke Ori Omi, he was asking them why and wondered what the people wanted, until they told him what had happened.”

The incident created panic and heavy traffic on the busy road, which has always been suffering from parking problems created by row of shops attached to the fence of the Police Area Command on one side and a drinking parlour and shops on the other.

Broken parts of the still glittering motorcycle were on the road just as some of the sympathisers at the scene wept bitterly, temporarily punctuating the celebration of Valentine in that part of the town.

It was gathered that the driver of the truck was taken away by the police to the Okesa Police Station but the Police Public Relations Officer for the state command, Mr Victor Babayemi Olu, could not be reached for an official reaction on the development.

However, police sources told newsmen that the lorry driver had been moved to the state Police Command headquarters for further investigation into the matter.

Already, posters announcing the obituary of the student of the Continuing Education Centre of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, were said to have been posted in the school, with some of the students lamenting the tragedy.