I wept bitterly seeing my husband’s intestines packed in a bowl, says widow
TOTAL: our transporter is in talks with the family
Emure-Ile community near Owo, Ondo State, was in sad mood last Saturday as the remains of Chief Samuel Ojo Adewale, an illustrious son of the community and erstwhile Chief Technologist of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, were interred amid tears.
Adewale was knocked down by a 33,000-litre tanker trailer believe to belong to major oil marketing company, Total, a few weeks to his 70th birthday. The said trailer was said to have been driven by a motor boy who was learning driving at the time the accident occurred.
Until his death, the late Adewale was said to have worked as a special marshal with the Osun Sector Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps. More than 500 marshals of the FRSC and scores of Adewale’s former colleagues at OAU, where he retired in 2007 after serving in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology for 29 years, were among the numerous sympathisers that thronged Our Saviour’s Anglican Church, Emure-Ile, to pay the deceased Baba Ijo of the church their last respects.
Eyewitness account
Ironically, his death was said to have resulted from reckless use of the highway, a phenomenon he had campaigned vigorously against as a special marshal. On June 3, a tanker with registration number FFA 678 XA, bearing the logo of TOTAL and loaded with 33,000 litres of petrol, was said to have veered off its lane at Ipetu-Ijesa, a border town between Ondo and Osun States, crushing Adewale to death. Parts of his body were said to have been spilled on the road at the section where Owena Market is located.
The deceased’s widow, Mrs. Olumide Adewale, said she was returning with her husband from his Emure-Ile home town to their base in Ile- Ife when the accident occurred.
She said: “There were only two of us in the Volvo car with registration number FFE 40 AA. We were coming from Emure-Ile, Owo, where we had gone to celebrate the Ero (age grade) Festival, which he had been taking part in since 2007.
“It was on June 3. When we got to Owena Market, he packed completely off the road to buy some yams for the people at home. I even told him that the yam would be expensive because they were usually brought in from Abuja, but he went while I remained in the car.
“As he came back and opened the car door, the truck veered from the other side of the road and knocked him down. It ran over him and dragged him along until it ran into a container shop that also fell on the vehicle I was seated in. By the time sympathisers managed to drag me out of the car, my clothes were torn, my ribs were broken and my legs were fractured. The Volvo car was also badly damaged.
“I could not stand up, but I managed to call the Road Safety. Some oncoming vehicles were also affected. I was later told that some other people also died.
“The young boy who drove the vehicle was said to be learning driving with the actual driver of the trailer seated beside him. I later managed to call my brother-in-law and my son and his wife who are medical doctors.
“The FRSC officials came and I was rushed to the Casualty Ward of the Wesley Hospital and later to the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife where I was admitted for three weeks.
“When I sighted my husband’s corpse after three weeks, I broke into tears. All his internal organs were packed in a bowl, whereas they had earlier told me that he was receiving treatment in another ward of the hospital where I was admitted, but I could not go to see him because I could not walk.
“The trailer is still at Ipetu-Ijesa Police Station.”
Asked what the last words of his husband were, she said: “I saw him being pressed down by the front tyre of the trailer and he was shouting, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ Those were his last words. I believe that was when his stomach burst. You needed to see the ugly sight.”
She recalled that she too could have been killed if she had entered the market with her deceased husband. “I had actually loosened my seat belt and was about to come down, but he said I should wait. If I had gone with him, the trailer could have killed the two of us,” she said.
The late Adewale’s son and OAU lecturer, Ayodele, recalled that he was in the lecture room with his Electrical Engineering students on June 3 when he got a phone call from one Mrs. Ojo that his parents were involved in an accident.
“The woman works at OAUTH (Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospita) Ile-Ife. Of course, I knew that my parents would be coming to Ife after they had travelled home. I drove down to Ilesha and asked what went wrong,
“When I got to Wesley Hospital about 20 minutes later, some Road Safety corps members came and I saw my mum seated in the back of their vehicle and was being taken to the emergency hall.
“Unfortunately, I saw them going to the morgue again and I suspected that my father had died. I followed them and later went to my mum to help them stabilise her and then took her to Ile-Ife for better treatment.
“The following morning, my medical doctor brother and I drove to Ipetu-Ijesa to see what had happened and also retrieve my parents’ personal effects. It was here that one of the people, who witnessed the scene and took photographs with their cell phones, showed me how the front tyre of the tanker trailer rested on my father’s waist.
“I asked my younger brother to take the pictures of the scene. After an hour, I saw a towing van going to the front of the TOTAL truck with 33,0000 litres of premium motor spirit (PMS) and was about to tow the vehicle. I resisted and an argument followed.
“I started calling my brothers who are medical doctors and our lawyer. I now waited to see the driver of the truck to give an explanation, but a young man came and said that the vehicle belonged to TOTAL and they would like to empty its contents because they would be losing money. I was furious.
“When they saw that we were upset, they went to the police station to tell the police to come and plead with us. These men were about 32, 33 years of age. When they came with the police, saying they were sorry, I told them that they should arrange to see the family.
“The DTO came up to plead with us to allow them take away the vehicle to avoid more accidents and prevent irate mob from burning down the truck. I heeded their plea because I am a simple man.
“We all rode down to Ipetu-Ijesa Police Station where the police told me that I should assume that my father died a natural death; that I should take it as his fate. This annoyed me the more. They thought they were talking to fools.
“They said that the trailer was loaded with 33,000 litres of PMS and that somebody could smoke a cigarette by its side and cause a disaster or some hoodlums could siphon the contents. And if left there, they would be losing money on a daily basis.
“In fact, some boys had earlier come and wanted to set it ablaze but I pleaded with them not to. They pleaded to take it away from the road and I accepted. On that note, I allowed them to take the contents and move the truck away from the road to avoid another accident.
“I also removed all my parents’ personal effects from the Volvo car and left it at the police station.
Twists to the story
“But later at the police station, the story changed. The DTO started singing another song. He told the truck driver and his apprentice to relax; that he would settle it. This shocked me to the marrow. I was surprised that a Nigerian policeman would say this and it made me to lose confidence in him. Since then, the case has been on.
“While I was agitating that they should not take away the truck, a man who identified himself as a senior official of TOTAL, came to inspect the scene of the accident.
“I went up to him and he said he was sent to ascertain what had happened. His personal assistant was taking down notes. He gave me his number and I was shocked when he said that the truck on which TOTAL was inscribed actually did not belong to TOTAL but one Mr. Ufot.
“Later, they said it was owned by Real Gold Company. But I don’t want to know Real Gold or Ufot.
“We will soon go to court. But you know that the courts have not been working for some time. When they resume, we will file our case as we have contacted our lawyer.
“What pained us most is the way and manner the owners of the truck and the police are treating the case; that nothing will happen. Imagine a Nigerian police officer conniving with suspects that killed over 10 people.”
The first born of the deceased, Dr. Abiodun Adewale, a medical doctor at the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, Ondo State, also accused the police of trying to compromise its investigation.
Dr. Adewale, who claimed that the man who drove the truck was an apprentice and that the vehicle’s particulars had expired, said: “The DTO wrote ‘brake failure’ and I asked him whether he could prove it. I asked whether he had called the VIO to inspect it. How can you be sitting here under a tree, writing in a relaxed mood and saying it is brake failure?
“Let’s ask a sincere question. The driver was going straight and had brake failure. There was a ditch but he did not go there. It was brake failure that made him to swerve?”
However, the Corporate Affairs Manager of Total Nigeria Plc, Albert Mabuyaku, who confirmed that the truck which killed the deceased, belongs to a transporter with the company, denied that the driver was an apprentice.
He said: “That information is not correct; the driver was trained in our transport school in Ibadan, Oyo State, and has a valid driver’s licence.”
Mabuyaku also told The Nation that the transporter was already talking with the aggrieved family.
According to him, “The family is making a claim of N6 million, whereas she (transporter) is offering N2 million, which the family is not willing to accept. I know that they are talking.”
The Police Public Relations Officer in Osun State, Mrs. Folasade Odoro, said the allegations against the police were not true. She said the police was not a Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO) to determine the state of the truck as at the time of the auto crash.
According to her: “What the police can do in this situation is to recommend the case to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) for advice and with the police investigation and the VIO report, the case can be charged to court.”
She disclosed that the suspect (the errant driver) had been charged to court for dangerous driving, causing the death of people and causing damage to property. She also said that the case the last time it came up in court was adjourned till September 29 for further hearing, while the case file had been sent to to DPP for legal advice.
