Two police stations closest to the scene of Sunday’s accident in which 40 lives were lost and 25 vehicles were either burnt or destroyed are being probed by the Nigerian Police Force.
The two police stations closest to the scene of the accident in which the police have denied complicity are the Isheri and Ojodu stations, under the Lagos State Command.
Our correspondent gathered on Tuesday that the police authorities decided to probe the two stations in order to determine whether any of them sent its men on duty at the spot of the accident.
A senior police officer, who asked not to be quoted, told our correspondent, “We don’t have a police patrol in the area. So if policemen were there at all as been reported in the newspapers, it is either illegal or a special duty. The police divisions closest to the place of the accident were Isheri and Ojodu. We are checking the stations out.
“One of our officers passed through that place 15 minutes before the reported time of the accident and he said he did not see any patrol team blocking the highway. So, we want to know where the policemen that were supposed to be there came from.”
But the Lagos State police spokesman, Mr. Frank Mba, declined to speak to our correspondent on the state of police investigation.
“I will not tell you what we are doing. But we are seriously investigating that accident and every circumstance surrounding it. We are discreet, fast and thorough. When we finish, we will make it public,” Mba said.
Meanwhile, the Lagos Zonal Command of the Federal Road Safety Commission has said that eye witnesses account indicated that the police were responsible for the Sunday accident that occurred at Otedola Millennium Estate, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
“From what we gathered from eye witnesses, the accident was caused by police team on patrol that day,” the FRSC Zonal Commander, Mr. Danjuma Garba told our correspondent on Tuesday.
The FRSC boss however refused to make a categorical statement on the cause of the accident given police denial of the involvement of its men.
Garba argued that since the police had denied involvement, it would not be fair to heap the blame
Comments