A heartbroken Nigerian man has recounted how his brother and others were killed after being crushed by a speeding vehicle when they were accosted by Nigerian Customs officials at Benin by-pass. According to him, the vehicle also crushed 10 other people and left many injured before the Customs officials fled the scene.
Peter Kalu revealed how his brother died in a tragic manner. Read below;
My brother, Mr. Anthony Ufere Uchechi Eke was coming home for Easter 2018. After discussing with him on Tuesday, March 27 on some issues, we ended up that he will take the night bus on Thursday, March 29, to meet me on Friday, March 30, at Aba for us to head home that same Friday, for an Executive meeting of our village (Easter meeting). Though he did not call me again to tell me that he has taken the night bus, yet on Friday morning I started calling him to inquire if he took the night bus or will be taken the morning bus, but nobody picks his calls.
After awhile, I received a call from home that my uncle, Sir Bonaventure Okoro Ibe (CPO) has passed on, as I was crying and weeping; I then received another call from a brother from Lagos telling me that he saw my uncle’s demise picture on Facebook and then started calling Ufere to inquire when that happened, only to his surprise the phone was picked by a Federal Road Safety woman who told him that the owner of the phone was involved in an accident along Benin-Lagos Express way (Benin by-pass) that they should start coming to Benin Teaching Hospital where those injured had being taken to.
He then spread the news to our villagers in Lagos which led to many joining him to Benin, on reaching there, they were taken to the Hospital to go round the wards which they did but could not find him there; having no option left, they were taken to the Mortuary. Lo! And behold, Ufere was lying there lifeless, dead. It was very late then, they slept at Benin and in the morning they got some necessary clearance and took his body down to our village, Umuchiakuma Ihechiowa Arochukwu LGA. Abia State and deposited him in the Mortuary.
But how did the accident occur? They asked, then the story emerges:
Ufere was reported to have board Best Way Transports at Lagos on that Thursday night for Aba, on their way home, around 2.00 am; they were parked by the Nigerian Customs at that Benin by-pass, and all were commanded to come down from the vehicle which they did except eight women that refused to come down; and they started searching the bus as if they were already informed of any country banned item in that bus, they found about seven bags of rice which the owner was not disclosed.
As some of their men were searching the bus, the other men commanded all that came out from that bus to stand in front of that buscar as they were using the light, unknowing to them, another set of Nigerian Customs were pursuing a trailer from the back, and on reaching there, the trailer driver as he wanted to make his way without stopping was confused as he saw on the other side of the road another parked damaged trailer, and since this buscar had taken half of the road, he had no other option then to hit this buscar from the back, and the buscar with that full force crushed everybody that was standing in its front, leaving 11 people dead instantly and many injured.
Those Nigerian Customs instead of rescuing life, they jumped into their vehicle and ran away, and nobody knew how long it took the Federal Road Safety Commission to arrive. That is how I lost my beloved brother and friend for mere bags of rice which even the President GMB won’t deny eating foreign rice.