A vehicle carrying at least 18 people caught fire on the Benin-Sagamu Expressway, resulting in severe burns that made identification impossible.
Babatunde Akinbiyi, spokesperson for the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency, confirmed this in a phone conversation with PUNCH Online on Monday.
Akinbiyi claimed that the driver had placed a keg full of petrol at the back of the car.
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The keg’s contents were alleged to have dripped over the vehicle’s hot exhaust, resulting in an explosion.
The driver managed to escape with minor injuries, but the 18 passengers were burned beyond recognition as a result of the explosion and the moving vehicle.
He added that eyewitnesses reported that the car, which was completely laden with passengers, was going from the country’s east to Lagos State prior to the incident.
Akinbiyi 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.”
He recognised the vehicle as a white Toyota Hiace bus with the license plate XA 690 AKU.
Akinbiyi stated that the injured driver was sent to a neighbouring hospital, while the bodies of the deceased were placed at the State Hospital mortuary in Ijebu-Ode.
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“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,” he said.
He encouraged motorists not to store fuel kegs in their vehicles while on the road.
“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 concluded.
