LAGOS – Companies, shops and offices were hurriedly closed on Monday afternoon as traders and residents scampered to their safety, when hoodlums and street urchins armed with bottles and other dangerous weapons confronted a detachment of police operatives at the scene of a fatal accident in Lagos.
Our Correspondent gathered from eye witness that for the sporadic shooting in the air and prompt reinforcement of police personnel by the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, CSP Taiwo Kasumu, what started as an accident would have snowballed in a bloody riot, as the armed hoodlums had started looting shops and dispossessing passers-by, over police refusal to allow them lynch the driver of an articulated vehicle that killed a battery charger.
According to an Electric Welder, identified himself as Akeem, whose shop is directly facing the accident scene, stated that the late battery charger, identified as Omobaba, was fixing a battery on a petrol tanker that broke down at Olowonla bus stop, along Igando–Iba/ LASU Expressway, Lagos, when one other petrol tanker on top speed, contesting to overtake another petrol tanker, hit the battery charger, who was backing the express road while trying to start the broken down tanker by the roadside.
The over-speeding tanker was said to have smashed the battery charger from his waist down, with his intestine spilling out, thereby resulting to his instant death and also tore the upper shoulder of the driver of the broken down tanker, who was assisting to fix the battery.
Unperturbed, the killer tanker driver was said to have escaped with his vehicle until he was pursued and apprehended by a police patrol vehicle and brought back to the scene.
Angered over the death of the son of one of their members, the NURTW touts at a nearby bus stop, now joined by hoodlums from an alleged notorious criminal hide-out called Agbole, had demanded that police release the killer driver to enable them lynch him, which was declined.
It was then that they vented their anger on the police and members of the public by throwing bottles, stones at the operatives, while looting nearby shops and dispossessing passers-by.
The riot, which lasted for hours, led to the smashing of the windshield of the killer tanker parked in front of Igando Police Division before police personnel chased the hoodlums away.
Meanwhile, a reliable police source said the late battery charger has been buried according to Islamic rites, while the killer driver was said to be under protective custody.
