Dangote Killer Trucks Leave Pains Behind; Nigerians Demand Govt Action

A Dangote Truck driver who killed a woman in Lagos state on Monday in Lagos has been arrested.

The yet-to-be identified driver was said to have crushed the woman to death around Abule-Egba inward Mobil Filling Station beside Jubilee Bridge Opposite Zenith Bank, yesterday in the state.

The truck plate number was identified as “Kano MDB531 XA”

According to a statement issued yesterday by the Director, Public Affairs and Enlightenment Department of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, Adebayo Taofiq, the accident was caused by brake failure, explaining that the trapped woman’s dead body was evacuated underneath the Dangote truck by LASTMA officials alongside other security agencies.

The body of the deceased has been handed over to the police, Taofiq said in the statement.

Part of the statement said: “Preliminary investigations revealed that the Dangote Mixer truck while on a high-speed lost control as a result of a brake failure and while trying to swerved into a drainage channel crushed an innocent woman.

“While the truck driver was immediately apprehended by Lastma Officials, Police men from Oko-Oba Police Station provided security backup while the rescue operations lasted.”

Not a few Nigerians have criticized the careless manner drivers working for the company drive on the road.

Monday’s incident was among many incidents in which trucks belonging to the company owned by Africa’s Richest Man have sent some innocent Nigerians to their untimely death.

In fact, the recurrent incidents have earned Dangote Trucks the nomenclature of ‘Killer Trucks’, amidst demand by Nigerians for responsibility on part of the drivers of the company , and the call on the government to rein in the company in other to curb the menace of road users being sent to the grave almost on a reccurrent basis.

The demand from Nigerians for an immediate action stemmed from the belief among that the company behave as if they are above the law.

“How many Dangote drivers who kill innocent people on the road have been arrested? In fact, the drivers always tell those that care to understand that they are ‘kill and go’ because nobody can do anything to them,” a Lagosian who witnessed one of such incidents told the magazine on Tuesday.

The source said Dangote Trucks have become ‘a menace to Nigerians’ who are using the road because they don’t know the next person to be “crushed to their untimely death” by these careless truck drivers.

Last December, another woman standing by the roadside in Ogun State was crushed to death by a Dangote truck driver. The plate number of the vehicle was marked XA354WDP, according to the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC.

Following the incident which occurred at Dalemo-Ota, along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway on Friday, December 29, the FRSC  Public Education Officer, FRSC,  Ogun Sector Command, Florence Okpe disclosed that a total of two persons were involved in the accident, one male adult and one female adult.

“The female adult was recorded dead from the crash,” she said in a statement.

She called on Dangote and other companies to “always conduct routine checks on their vehicles and make sure the braking systems are effective before putting them on the road.”