Martins Olasehinde
LAGOS – A yet-to-be-identified man was on Monday, crushed to death by a moving train in Nigeria’s Lagos State, emergency management agency said, in a repetition of the incident in less than two weeks.
The latest incident happened in the Ikeja area of the state on Monday early hours, said Olufemi Oke-Osayintolu, Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA).
This comes barely 10 days after a moving train crushed a man to death in the Oshodi area of the country’s commercial hub.
The body of the latest victim was, however, recovered by LASEMA’s response team and handed over to the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit for necessary action, according to Oke-Osayintolu.
“The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency activated its response team at 0828hrs in response to distress calls. On arrival at the incident scene at 0902hrs, LRT discovered the dead body of an adult male on the train tracks,” the LASEMA boss said. “Further investigations revealed that the adult male was reportedly hit by a moving train in the early hours of the morning.
“The agency’s response team recovered the body from the railway tracks and handed it to the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit. SEHMU has transferred the commodity to the morgue for further processing.”
The Lagos State Task Force had vowed last Tuesday, to arrest traders plying their trade along the train tracks across the state.
While responding to the trading activities on train tracks by some traders, the task force’s spokesman Abdulraheem Gbadeyan noted that the agency made frantic efforts to deter the traders, but they had remained adamant.
Gbadeyan noted that efforts would be intensified in arresting and punishing offenders that had remained adamant.
“Last week, we were at Mile 2 and we dislodged some of the traders who were trading on the track. The problem is that these traders have remained defiant despite repeated warnings and arrests.
“We will intensify our efforts in arresting the defiant ones who had refused to heed warnings. The train tracks are not places to ply your trade,” Gbadeyan had said.