Bella Ifasola
OGUN, Nigeria – No fewer than 18 people were burnt beyond recognition in Nigeria when a vehicle conveying them caught fire along the Benin-Sagamu Expressway on Monday, a spokesperson for Ogun State’s traffic compliance and enforcement agency told a local newspaper.
Eyewitnesses’ accounts suggested that the vehicle, fully loaded with passengers, was travelling from the eastern part of the country en route to the country’s commercial hub Lagos before the incident.
The vehicle’s driver had placed a keg filled with petrol at the back of the vehicle, the spokesperson for the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE), Babatunde Akinbiyi told The Punch newspaper.
The keg was said to have leaked its contents onto the vehicle’s exhaust, which was at a high temperature, leading to an explosion.
The explosion, coupled with the vehicle being in motion, resulted in the burning of the 18 passengers, while the driver was able to escape with injuries, Akinbiyi explained.
He said: “There was a road accident today along the RCC Yard on the Sagamu-Benin Expressway at about 3:30 pm. 18 people were presumed dead as the vehicle caught fire, and the passengers were burnt beyond recognition.
“Eyewitness accounts, corroborated by the driver, indicated that there was a keg full of petrol inside the bus, which fell over when the vehicle entered a pothole.
“The petrol poured onto the floor of the bus, then onto the exhaust pipe, causing the vehicle to catch fire while in transit.”
Akinbiyi identified the vehicle as a white Toyota Hiace bus with the number plate XA 690 AKU.
The TRACE’s spokesman noted that the injured driver was taken to a nearby hospital, while the bodies of the deceased were deposited at the State Hospital morgue in Ijebu-Ode.
“The partially burnt and injured driver was rescued and taken to Rona Hospital in Ijebu-Ode, while the presumed dead were deposited at the State Hospital Mortuary, Ijebu-Ode, by the FRSC,” Akinbiyi said.
He urged motorists to desist from storing fuel kegs in their vehicles when embarking on road journeys.
“While TRACE, FRSC, police, and OGSEAS commiserate with the families of the deceased, motorists are once again admonished not to store fuel in kegs and jerry cans while in transit, due to the attendant consequences,” Akinbiyi added.