• Conflicting casualty figures

• Protesters burn truck, vandalise VIO vehicle

There was protest by residents yesterday at Ojodu, a Lagos surburb, as an articulated truck crushed pupils of Babs Fafunwa Millennium Secondary School, who were returning home after school hours.

No fewer than 17 students were feared dead at the Grammar School Bus Stop, Ogunnusi Road, along Ogba-Ojodu/Berger axis, according to eye witness, who said the truck driver was trying to evade arrest by Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) and men of the Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASTMA) from Berger Division, Ikeja.

The pupils wanted to cros the road when the truck rammed into them.

It was gathered that the brake of the truck failed during the hot chase by VIO and LASTMA officials.

Anxious parents stormed the scene, a stone throw from the Ogba/Ojodu road to inquire about the corpses and the injured victims.

Economic activities were paralysed as residents trooped out to protest the avoidable tragedy, blaming the notorious driver, VIO and LASTMA officers for the accident.

However, the Lagos Stae Police Command confirmed that the corpses of 10 pupils evacuated from the accident scene have been taken to the mortuary.

Other casualties are receiving treatment at the hospital, the police added.

The truck was set ablaze by the angry mob while the VIO vehicle was vandalised.

Also, the mob chased the driver to Ogba, where he was apprehended by the police.

Read Also: PHOTOS: Pandemonium as trailer kills school children in Lagos 

There was gridlock and the traffic stretched towards Ogba axis as some protesters blocked a section of the road with tyres.

However, as at press time, the Area F Police Command, which could not confirm the number of casualties, confirmed that they have evacuated two corpses from the accident scene and taken to hospital.

The eyewitness said the incident occurred at 3.15pm and the pupils were returning home in groups.

He said: “The trailer was coming with speed from Berger area heading to Ogba. He was being chased by VIO and LASTMA officers. So, he hit the students, who were about to cross the road. The children were shouting for help, but the trailer driver ran away instead of stopping. The children were many, about 15 children. One policeman came and he said there were 15 children. Many of them were injured.

“The truck driver was trying to escape. Then, a car double-crossed him. So, he came down and people started chasing him. When they caught him, he brought out a knife to attack the crowd. So, someone hit him from behind, took the knife from him and stabbed him. So, he was now taken to the Grammar School Police Station. The students were angry and started throwing stones, attacking and vandalising any truck in sight.

Another eyewitness said: “The truck, after hitting the students, also hit two pedestrians around Aguda area in Ogba just before the Excellence Hotel. The victims were immediately rushed to the Ifako General Hospital.”

At the God’s Apple Hospital, four casualties were brought in critical condition and moved to a specialist hospital for scanning.

A nurse at the hospital said: “Three boys were brought to us. Two sustained head injuries of different degrees and the third one had a musculoskeletal injury. We didn’t transfer them. They are just going for a brain scan and the one with musculoskeletal injury is going for an X-ray scan at the Head Point Diagnostic Center. They are still coming back.”

At the Royan Hospital, Ojodu, four pupils were admitted. But, according to the hospital, they were later moved to the Ifako General Hospital by the police.

Casualties were also taken to St Timothy Hospital, Royan Hospital, Solid Rock Hospital, all in Ojodu.

Hoodlums joined students, who were on rampage, looting shops within the area.

Police Public Relation Officer (PPRO), CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu said: “We are on top of the situation. Adequate policemen are on ground to maintain law and order. The situation is being professionally handled. The driver has been arrested. Investigation into the accident is ongoing”.

Ojodu council boss, Olusegun Odunmbaku, who visited five hospitals, called for calm.

He said the local government will foot the medical bills. Odunmbaku also made arrangements for ambulances to transfer some victims to the Ifako Ijaiye General Hospital.

In a statement by his media aide, Jumu’ah Abiodun, he commiserated with the families of the victims.

Odunmbaku, who also addressed the parents, said: “My heart is broken for the families and friends of students who lost their lives in this horrible accident. This is a devastating tragedy, my thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the horrible accident that killed Grammar School students,” Odunmbaku said.

“My heartfelt condolences to the victims’ families, May God grant them the fortitude to bear the irreplaceable loss,” he added.

The council boss urged sympathisers to respect the families privacy. “There’s need for calm in this trying time, we must all at the same time respect the privacy of the bereaved families.”

Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) boss Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu said: “The agency received a distress call at 2.56pm about a truck accident at Ogunnusi Road, Grammar School Bus Stop, Ojodu-Berger.

“However, information gathered from LASTMA and NPF officers at the scene revealed that an unidentified truck lost control and rammed into pupils returning from school.

The Lagos sector command of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) denied the involvement of its officials in the incident.

Olabisi Sonusi of the FRSC Lagos Command, in a statement, said 14 persons involved in the incident were taken to the hospital.

He said: “An articulated truck was said to have lost control at Grammar School Bus stop along Ogunnusi Road, Lagos today Tuesday 7th December, 2021, which caused the death of unverified number of students and leaving many injured.”

Sonusi added: “Men of the FRSC were called upon by passerby to help intervene after the crash had happened. About seven (7) of the victims were rescued and immediately taken to Lagos State Emergency Centre Ojota by FRSC personnel while another road user helped in carrying about seven (7) also to the same emergency centre.

“The general public should disregard the disgruntled information been circulated by some unscrupulous element that FRSC men caused the crash. We want to place on record that our men were not in any way involved in the cause of the crash as patrol activities was not ongoing along that axis as at the time of the crash.”

According to the statement, Olusegun Ogungbemide, sector commander, commiserated with the families of the deceased.

A former Kano State Governor Ibrahim Shekarau has said a meeting of members of his faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) last Sunday in Kano with the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tunibu, was on the party’s lingering crisis in the state.

Shekarau told BBC Hausa that Asiwaju Tinubu invited him for the meeting in Lagos after he was briefed on the party crisis in Kano by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

Ganduje’s loyalists constitute the other faction of the APC in Kano and control the leadership until the Federal High Court in Abuja, last week, voided the congresses that produced the party’s leaders.

Read Also; PHOTOS: Former Kano Gov Shekarau visits Tinubu

Shekarau said the crisis in the Kano APC has nothing to do with Ganduje but with the state’s leadership of the party.

He said: “I told Asiwaju Tinubu that the crisis in Kano APC was not between myself and Ganduje. It is a disagreement of the party leadership in the state. We were sidelined in the affairs of the party in the state.

“Asiwaju Tinubu told me that Governor Ganduje initially briefed him about the crisis. So, as a leader, he deemed it necessary to invite me to hear from me and he sent for me and we met on Sunday in Lagos.”

Shekarau said the meeting with Asiwaju Tinubu was strictly on the Kano APC crisis.

He said such a meeting with the party’s national leader was usual as they had always met to discuss issues in the APC.

The former Kano State governor said all the contending groups in Kano had briefed Asiwaju Tinubu about the party’s crisis in the state.

By Yusuf Alli, Moses Emorinken, Eric Ikhilae, Sanni Onogu, Tony Akowe, Abuja and Samuel Oamen

The Federal Government is weighing options, including the invocation of the “principle of reciprocity,” in response to the travel ban placed on travellers from Nigeria by the United Kingdom.

The Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19 was expected last night to convene a meeting on appropriate advice to the government.

Before a top PSC official made this known to The Nation yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said in Dakar, Senegal, that the UK authorities have assured the Federal Government that the ban would be lifted “as quickly as possible.”

The UK has been under pressure to review its decision.

Yesterday, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) and the National Assembly rejected the ban, saying it should be lifted as quickly as possible.

The UK authorities had at the weekend placed the ban on Nigeria and eight other African countries.

Its High Commissioner in Nigeria, Catriona Laing, promised on Monday that her country was keen on lifting the restriction on December 20.

A diplomat told The Nation in Abuja that the intense pressure may force the UK not to extend the ban beyond three weeks.

According to the official, the Federal Government was being prevailed upon to “invoke the principle of reciprocity” against the UK.

It was gathered that the government is also hurt that some important bilateral meetings/conferences between Nigeria and the UK have also been affected.

The official said: “The Federal Government is weighing options on whether or not to be reciprocal on the travel ban. There are many measures available to Nigeria, including banning flights to and from the UK, placing restrictions on Britons, and designing specific protocols for Britons coming to Nigeria.

“Many experts have asked the government to react to the UK in equal measures. The UK went beyond diplomatic courtesy by not joining issues with Nigeria on its observations on Omicron variant of Coronavirus.

“The ban was an ambush and the decision was taken within a few hours to its implementation. Nigeria was not put in confidence.”

Asked when the government would announce its options, the source added: “We are expecting the PSC to meet any moment from now and come up with an advisory to guide the government.

Read Also: Airlines to pay $3,500 per passengers for flouting COVID-19 protocols

“We are hopeful that in the next 48 hours, the PSC will be able to guide the government appropriately.”

As of press time, investigation revealed that the Federal Government was yet to “lodge a formal protest on the ban to the UK Government.”

Another source said: “Apart from a statement by the Minister of Information and Culture,   Lai Mohammed, the Federal Government has not filed any formal complaint. The diplomatic procedure is for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey a formal protest to the UK Government through the nation’s High Commission in the UK.

“I know the government has not lodged a formal complaint against the ban as part of its procedure of weighing options on the next step. You know, the challenge has to be managed in a way that it won’t affect the age-long ties between Britain and Nigeria.”

A diplomat, who also spoke on the ban said: “The UK was shocked that its travel ban was unpopular in Nigeria. Even the British High Commission in Nigeria was not expecting the backlash.

“With the way things are going, the UK government may not extend the ban beyond this initial three weeks. The ban may even be lifted before the initial timeline.”

Onyema said the travel restriction would not work because “some countries putting up these bans already have the Omicron variant on their shores.”

He said rather than “segmenting” or embargoing travellers from some countries, attention should be on how the global community can resolve the crisis. Onyeama spoke at the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa.

He said: “We follow the World Health Organisation’s advice and what they consider not to be the best practice on COVID-19, which is those travel restrictions don’t achieve anything as such.

“Our position aligns with WHO’s position. The  Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom, is saying that these travel bans are not the solution and that your standard protocols should suffice to address the situation; wearing masks, testing contact tracing, distancing and other measures are more than enough to address that.

“Travel bans will not work because some countries putting up these bans already have the Omicron variant in their countries and it doesn’t make a difference.

“We should rather be coming together to look at ways we could solve this issue as a global community rather than segmenting.

“We are working with the UK government so that Nigeria will be removed from the red list. They have told us that they are very keen to remove Nigeria as quickly as possible from the red list and we are going to continue to work with them and encourage them to do that.”

Governors kick, seek WHO’s intervention

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) in a statement by its Chairman, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, described the ban  as not only hasty, but  an “act of arbitrary stigmatisation.”

He urged the World Health Organisation to urgently intervene in view of the possible negative consequences of the “hasty decision”.

Fayemi said the hasty decision” could exacerbate the current challenge of vaccine hesitancy in most countries.

He added: “The NGF wishes to draw the attention of WHO to the arbitrary stigmatisation that is caused by the recent banning of countries from visitation based on Omicron spread.

“Only three cases of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus were detected in Nigeria less than a week ago, precisely on December 1, 2021.

‘“Canada and the United Kingdom have hastily included Nigeria among the Omicron present countries which must stay away from their shores,  an action viewed by the NGF as precipitate, unfair and discriminatory.

“The NGF, therefore, urges the WHO to intervene in this matter by setting uniform standards that are acceptable to all for banning countries across the globe.”

National Assembly: UK’s action amounts to negative profiling

The National Assembly said the ban amounted to “negative profiling and an attack on diplomatic relationship”

It, therefore, called on the British Government to consider  removing Nigeria from the list of the  affected countries  in the interest of   the diplomatic relationship between the two countries

While the  Senate, also enjoined the Federal Government to constructively engage the British authorities with a view to reversing the ban, the House of Representatives warned that the action by the UK  would have economic consequences on Nigeria.

Their reactions followed motions on matters of urgent national importance moved by   Ike Ekweremadu in the Senate and House Minority Leader Ndudi Elumelu at separate plenaries.

A labour leader, Issa Aremu, described the ban as “Afro-phobia.”

Aremu, who is also the Director-General, Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour Studies (MINILS), said the ban is “a forefront campaign against Africa, promoted by the western media.”

NCDC confirms three additional Omicron cases

Nigeria has confirmed three additional cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, bringing the total number recorded in the past seven days to six.

The three carriers are travellers from South Africa, where the new variant was discovered by scientists.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which announced the three new cases yesterday, had on December 1, said three cases, also from South Africa had been recorded in Nigeria.

A statement yesterday said the UK Government had notified the Federal Government of “seven cases of travelers from Nigeria with the Omicron variant.”

It added that ”given the reports of increasing numbers of Omicron cases in the UK, the NCDC is also prioritising the sequencing of COVID-19 positive samples in travelers with a history of travelS to the UK.”

By Kofoworola Belo-Osagie, Adebisi Onanuga, Lagos, and Tony Akowe, Abuja

• Coroner meets Falana

• Mothers hold candlelight

• Reps urge police IG to take over investigation

Police confirmed yesterday that five pupils and three housemasters of Dowen College, Lekki, have been arrested over the death of Sylvester Oromoni Jnr.

Spokesman, Adekunle Ajisebutu, confirmed the development in a statement, adding that investigation was ongoing.

“I can confirm to you that five of the students involved are being held in custody and are helping with investigation. We can’t say too much as regards the case so that we don’t jeopardise investigation but the Lagos Police Command will leave no stone unturned in unraveling the case,” he said.

The Nation learnt that the three suspects were invited alongside their parents for questioning yesterday, and that Maroko divisional police headquarters and the homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, have been directed to take over the case immediately.

Sylvester, 12, who died last Tuesday, is believed to have been bullied and beaten by fellow students who wanted him to join their cult group.

The institution has been shut over the incident.

A mother to one of the students accused of taking part in the assault on Sylvester, said her son, Edward Brown, was innocent.

Read Also: Controversy over death of student at Dowen College

The woman, Ms Oluchi Sunday, in an online statement, said her son was a day student and could not have been in the hostel on the day and time of the incident.

Parents of Dowen College pupils scheduled a candlelight procession by the school for today in honour of the late Sylvester.

A statement by four parents, Aituaz Kola-Oladejo, Waheed Adeoye, Oluwaseun Bola-Ajila, and Kingsley Kema-Agu called on parents and children with information that could help the investigation to speak up.

The women also called for a change in the school management and hostel teachers, and asked that closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras be installed in the school.

“Dowen College Parents are startled and deeply saddened by the unfortunate incident that led to the death of Sylvester Oromoni. Our hearts go out to the family of the deceased,” they said.

Lagos State Coroner, Justice Mojisola Dada will today hold a preliminary meeting with human rights lawyer Femi Falana, who, barely 24 hours ago, sought an inquest into Sylvester’s death.

The meeting will hold in Epe at 11am.

The House of Representatives asked the Inspector General of Police to take over investigation of the circumstances surrounding Sylvester’s death, as well as that of 14-year-old Keren-Happuch Aondodoo Akpagher of Premier Academy, Lugbe, Abuja and ensure those found culpable are brought to justice.

Keren died in June after a sexual assault.

The lawmaker asked that police should also investigate alleged harassment and threat of Keren’s family and an NGO that took up the girl’s murder.

The House equally urged the Federal Ministry of Education to set out guidelines for the operation of boarding schools across the country, insisting that they should no longer be allowed to operate without guidelines.

The House resolution followed a motion of urgent public importance on  the inhuman treatment in boarding schools across the country and the need to carry out comprehensive investigation.

The motion was raised by Rep Unyime Idem.

Gunmen suspected to be kidnappers have abducted a Catholic Priest, Rev Joseph Ajayi, along the Akure-Ikere road in Ondo State.

He was said to be travelling in his Toyota Corolla to Ilara-Mokin in Ifedore Local Government Area, close to Akure, the state capital, where his parish is located.

Ondo Police spokesman, Fumilayo Odunlami, a deputy superintendent of police, did not pick her calls when our correspondent sought to confirm the incident.

The gunmen are yet to demand a ransom, it was learnt.