Two
weeks ago, many families mourned, following the death of no fewer than
80 people, including 57 passengers of a commercial luxury bus, which
collided with a fuel tanker in Ugbogui, on the Benin-Lagos expressway
and burst into flames
The
victims were burnt beyond recognition and were given mass burial last
week. However, today the family of Kenneth Chinedu Nwaokoro, a
24-year-old final year student of Information Technology of Caritas
University, Enugu, who survived the accident, is rejoicing.
This
lucky young man, from Imo State, was returning to Enugu to complete his
final year project, after visiting his brother in Lagos. He is
currently on admission at the Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu. Narrating
what happened and how he survived, Nwaokoro told Saturday Sun: “When we
left the park to embark on the journey, our bus was half filled; so the
driver picked passengers along the road until the bus was filled, except
for the seat beside me, which I did not allow anybody to occupy.
The
excuse I gave was that somebody was sitting there beside because I
didn’t want disturbance and more so it was illegal for them to pick
passengers along the road. The journey was smooth, so I slept off. “I
was sleeping when the accident happened. It was the sound of the
collision that woke me up. I woke up to see the driver struggling with
the steering to man-oeuvre the bus, but everywhere was already on fire
immediately the bus collided with the tanker and there was commotion.”
The
struggle to escape On how the passengers struggled to escape from
impending death, Nwaokoro said: “People where shouting and running
towards the entrance, but the door was locked. The bus was one of The
Young’s new buses. There was fire everywhere and people were getting
burnt. At first, I was confused, but I convinced myself that I would
survive. I opened the window and jumped out.
The
fire burnt my back and face. On landing, I ran straight to a local
hospital close to the scene of the accident, where I had to part with
N2, 000 before they gave me first aid. I then contacted my younger
brother, who came and took me to Enugu.” Asked if there were other
passengers who escaped through the window with him, he said: “I noticed
that a guy jumped after me, but he was seriously burnt.
I
couldn’t wait to check him because I was burnt too and my hands were
fractured.” How he bought the bus ticket Nwaokoro revealed that his name
was not on the manifest of the bus because his younger sister bought
the ticket for him. According to him, the sister’s name was written on
the manifest (seat 23) because when it was her turn to pay for the
ticket, the official of the transport company asked for her name and
quickly wrote it on the ticket before verifying if she was the one traveling.
He
revealed that when the ticket officer realized the mistake, she said
that since she had written the name on the ticket, there was nothing she
could do. The only remedy offered was to enter Nwaokoro’s phone number
against his sister’s name, while his sister’s phone number was entered
as next of kin.
Sister
corroborates his story The lucky passenger’s younger sister, Catherine
Onyinyechi Nwaokoro, said: “I went to the bus center with him and I
bought the ticket. The cashier presumed I was the one traveling and
issued the ticket in my name. When I saw the mistake, I called her
attention to it and she said it was late as she could not alter the
ticket. She said that since the passenger was my brother he could make
use of the ticket.
That
was why she wrote his phone number on the passenger’s list and my own
as the next of kin.” No visit from the transport company When asked if
anybody from the transport company The Young, had visited him, Nwaokoro
said nobody had. His elder brother, Emmanuel Nwaokoro, told Saturday Sun
that he visited the company’s branch office at Jibowu, Lagos, where his
brother boarded the bus and he was referred to Maza Maza, in Lagos,
where the company’s head office is located.
At
the head office, the elder Nwaokoro said when he told the manager that
his younger brother survived the accident, he expressed surprise, saying
they did not know anybody survived. “When I told the manager about my
brother’s survival, he said they didn’t know that somebody survived it.
He told us to come back in a week or two weeks’ time to fill insurance
form and other relevant documents for compensation.”
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