Lagos-Ibadan Expressway horror
For
a Lagos-based engineer, Mr. Johnson Duru, January 4, 2013 would remain
indelible in his mind. It was the day he, his two daughters and two
other relations, were attacked by armed robbers on the notorious ‘long
bridge’ along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. He narrated his experience to
SAMUEL AWOYINFA
Plying the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway both
at daytime and night is fraught with danger. A lot of people have been
attacked on the ‘long bridge,’ which is a stretch on the express road
from Warewa to Kara, by hoodlums who lay siege to the bridge.
A Lagos-based engineer, Mr. Johnson
Duru, his two daughters, Ada and Debby; his nephew, Chinelo and his
younger sister, Chidiogo, had a raw deal in the hands of highway robbers
on January 4, 2013. They still have scars to show for the horrible
encounter.
Duru said it was a frightening experience that he would not forget for a long time.
It happened during his return trip to
Lagos from Nkpologwu, Anambra State, where he went with members of his
family to celebrate the Yuletide with his mother.
On that fateful Friday, Duru had wanted
to arrive in Lagos on time, so that he could go to his office in the
afternoon. But he did not get home until 2.00am the next morning, with
almost a severed left arm, while his children and others had scars from
machete cuts.
Duru narrated their experience: “I left
Nkpologwu by 6.30am in my Toyota Highlander. I planned to get to the
office in the afternoon as soon as I got to Lagos, because it was my
resumption day. The journey was smooth until we got to a location
between Ore and Ogun State. I heard a loud noise under the car that made
the steering wheel unsteady.
“I parked the car. When I came down to
see what it was, the right tyre in the front had burst. After I changed
the tyre, the car refused to move. The hub around the wheel and some
other parts had been destroyed, while the head lamp on the right-hand
side was also gone.”
That was the beginning of his ordeal. He had to seek the service of a towing vehicle.
A towing vehicle soon showed up at the
scene, and Duru negotiated with the operator to tow the vehicle to his
mechanic’s place in Victoria Island, Lagos. The towing vehicle operator
demanded N95,000; but after much haggling, he agreed to collect N60,000.
It was this encounter with the operator of the towing vehicle that led Duru and members of his family to the den of robbers.
Duru said, “We had hardly done a
kilometre when the driver of the towing vehicle stopped abruptly and
parked by the road, in the middle of nowhere. He said one of the rear
tyres was leaking. I could see that the two tyres were well inflated, he
insisted on changing the tyre.”
“The driver of the towing vehicle
removed the tyre and went away for an hour. By the time he returned to
fix the tyre, it was already past noon. And the journey to Lagos
commenced afresh.
Around 5.30pm, they finally made it to
the notorious ‘long bridge’ section of the expressway, after a
settlement called Warewa in Ogun State. Here, Duru and his family
experienced another shocking behaviour from the man who now seemed to
have assumed control over their well-being.
The driver of the towing vehicle
suddenly stopped along the bridge, which is about three kilometres to
Berger Bus Stop, Lagos. What was the problem? The driver came up with
the leaking tyre theory again.
Duru said, “As was the case the first
time, I observed that the tyre was still intact, with no sign of
leakage. I became suspicious. It was between 5.30pm and 6.00pm, meaning
that we had spent nearly six hours between the RCCG camp and Berger – a
journey of not more than 25 minutes on a normal occasion. I alighted
and pleaded with him to take us to Berger Bus Stop but he refused.
“Before I knew what was happening, he
had removed a tyre from the towing van, after which he made some calls
on his phone, in Yoruba language, which I don’t understand or speak.
“Shortly after the call, three men
emerged from under the bridge, armed with long machetes. They charged at
me, barking, ‘where is the money?’ Before I could fathom what was
happening, the driver had run to the other side of the road, leaving me
and my family members at the mercy of the robbers.”
Still writhing in pain, with his swollen
arm, he continued, “I tried to run but when I saw them attacking my
children and other relations with machetes, I ran back. While two of the
robbers concentrated on looting our valuables and money, the third one
faced me, attempting to cut off my head, because he aimed the machete at
my neck region.
“I raised my left hand and blocked it. I
ended up with a big cut in my left arm, just a little above the elbow.
My eight-year-old daughter, Ada, received lacerations on her thigh and
leg. Debby, Chinelo and Chidiogo were also traumatised, because they
also got injured during the attack.”
At the end of the attack, the robbers
made away with a bag containing his laptop, phones, while his younger
sister also lost two phones and an undisclosed amount of money.
After the robbery, the driver of the
towing vehicle returned to where they were and fixed the tyre. During
the attack, Duru said, no police patrol team showed up neither did
other travellers stop to offer help. Even with blood-soaked shirt, Duru
said he waved to other motorists in vain for help.
“When some motorists saw my blood-soaked
shirt, they increased their speed as they drove past us,” he said. It
was a woman who was driving a private bus that stopped to offer him a
piece of cloth which he used to tie the wound.
The men of Federal Road Safety
Commission later arrived the scene and evacuated Duru and his family to
the Lagos State Accident and Emergency Hospital at the old toll gate,
Lagos, where they received treatment.
His eight-year-old daughter described the experience as the worst in her life.
Duru later went to Isheri Police Station, where the policemen on duty said the area was not within their area of jurisdiction.
He was directed to Warewa Police
Station, where a police woman they met on the counter addressed the
driver of the towing van by name.
Duru said, “I could see that the
policewoman was angry with him. As we were discussing, a superior
officer emerged from his office and without any investigation or
questioning of the driver, he said the driver could not be connected
with the men that attacked us.
“From there, we were asked to go to
Ibafo Police Station, where the policemen said the corpse of a thief who
was killed on the bridge was taken to — probably infering that the
thief was probably one of the men who attacked us.
“When we got there, we met the
divisional crime officer who said the corpse of the thief had been taken
away. At every police station we went, some officials of the Lagos
State Towing Vehicle Operators Association followed us. At the end of
the day, the driver was never interrogated. I got home the next day
around 2.00am disappointed.”
Reacting to the incident, the Police
Public Relations Officer, Ogun State Command, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, said
police patrol teams from Ojodu-Abiodun and Ibafo police stations still
patrolled the long bridge, adding that they had not abandoned the patrol
regime which started last year, following the public outcry that
greeted incessant attacks of travellers on the long bridge.
Adejobi said, “We have some suspects at
the state command who were arrested on the long bridge last week. They
are still with us. For those who might be in distress on the long bridge
or Ibafo area, they can call the DPO on 08081762260, DPO Ojodu on
08081771800 or the officer-in charge, Quick Response Squad on
08081771717.”
He advised Duru to forward his
complaints to the police command at Eleweran, Abeokuta, if he was not
satisfied with the way his case was treated.
Duru said he learnt that a day before he was attacked, a motorist whose car developed a fault on the bridge was killed.
Attacks by robbers on the long bridge
are frequent. Hardly does a week pass without reports of an attack on
road users, sometimes leading to death.
On July 6, 2012, Brig. Gen. Sylvester
Iruh (retd), who was returning from a burial, was killed on the long
bridge as he was changing a flat tyre around 6.30pm.
Two weeks later, some passengers
travelling in a 14-seater bus from Ile-Ife, Osun State, were attacked
when their bus broke down on the same bridge around 7.30pm. A female
journalist, whose car also broke down on the bridge, last year, had her
car and valuables stolen. The car was later recovered by the police.
There are so many bad spots on the
expressway which made the Federal Government embark on its repair. The
reconstruction of the road has however been greeted with controversies.
In December 2012, the Federal Government
revoked the three-year-old concession agreement with Bi-Courtney
Highway Services for the reconstruction of the road and consequently
named Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and RCC Nigeria Limited as the two new
firms to handle the project.
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