Accident claims five, eight Ekiti varsity students injured

 
DANGEROUS CELEBRATION Eight final year students of Ekiti State University almost lost their lives while returning from a night club after celebrating the end of their study

At least five persons, mostly traders going to Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, died in an accident on Ado-Ifaki Road yesterday. Eight final year students of the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado- Ekiti, were seriously injured in the crash.
The accident involved a lorry carrying the traders and a Mazda car conveying the students. Also in Lagos yesterday, 18 passengers and the driver survived a crash at Otedola Estate on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
But in the Ekiti crash, the driver of the lorry is currently on life support at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti. The students, according to sources, were returning from a night club in Ado-Ekiti where they had gone to celebrate the completion of their final year examinations.

The accident, near Iworoko-Ekiti, occurred about 4.30am, as the vehicle in which the students were traveling, had a head on collision with the lorry going to Ado-Ekiti. The students were in a grey Mazda with registration number Lagos KJA 608 CD and the traders were in a Nissan lorry marked Osun AA 529 FTD. The traders were from Ora-Ekiti and were going to Ado-Ekiti to sell farm produce.
It was learnt that the students were drunk. The timely intervention of villagers around the scene and some policemen attached to Iworoko Division led by their Divisional Police Officer helped in saving the lives of the injured persons. They used axes and cutlasses to cut the vehicles open and evacuate the victims.
The clothes and shoes of the students littered the scene, while some of their colleagues were there to sympathize. The EKSU Students Union Public Relations Officer, Miss Priscilla Afolabi, said though the students were seriously injured, they were responding to treatment.
She said: “They are our colleagues coming from a dinner. None of them died, they were eight, five females and three males. They were coming from a popular hotel close to the university, venue of the dinner, when the incident happened.”
The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Victor Babayemi, confirmed the incident. He said only two people died and that the corpses had been deposited at the morgue. In the Lagos incident, the Mazda bus with registration number MUS 281 XX was conveying passengers from Ketu in Lagos to Mowe in Ogun State.
The Head of intervention team of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr A. A. Ajayi, told our correspondent that the bus somersaulted four times after the front tyre burst.
He said: “Thank God, there are no casualties; only three people were wounded with bruises and shock. They have been rushed to the Accident Emergency Management Centre at tollgate, Ojota.”
Ajayi advised drivers conveying people on the expressway to check the condition of their vehicles before moving and desist from over-speeding, capable of causing fatal accidents. Policemen were also at the scene to direct traffic caused by the accident.

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