Train Crushes Dispatch Rider to Death Month Before Wedding

         

A dispatch rider, said to be in his early 30s, was on Thursday crushed to death by a train in the Fagba area of Lagos State.

Punch metro learnt that the victim, identified simply as Johnson, was working with a
courier service in Ikeja. Johnson, whose wedding was reportedly scheduled for March, was riding the firm’s motorcycle from the Abule Egba area when the incident happened.


It was gathered that vehicular movements had been stopped in the area because of the
train which was passing. The deceased, it was learnt, wanted to hurriedly
cross the rail track when he was trapped by the train.

Eyewitnesses said he was dragged into a drain but was later brought out dead in a pool of
blood. Two men, who declined to give their names, identified themselves as colleagues of the victim, They also refused to name the courier company they work for.

An okada rider, Abdullahi Umar, said policemen from the Oko Oba division came to evacuate Johnson’s remains and his effects.

He said, “It happened around 12pm. It was very bloody. I could not look at his corpse twice. My colleagues rushed to take him out of the drain, but he was dead. Our chairman called the Oko Oba police station.

“One of his neigbours, who came here, said he lived in Ogba, but I did not ask where exactly in Ogba.
“While we were all lamenting the tragedy, the neighbour said he (Johnson) did an engagement at his village in December and that he was supposed to wed in March in Lagos.”

A tricycle rider, who identified himself simply as Idowu, blamed the incident on impatience on the part of the deceased.
“It was a death that could have been averted. Others were waiting for the train to pass; he should have waited too. The blaring of the train filled everywhere, so he was fully aware. He just took a risk which unfortunately cost him his life,” he said.

When reporters visited Oko Oba Police Station, a police officer, who wanted to be anonymous, said Johnson’s corpse was evacuated by his colleagues from the Railway Police Station and had been deposited in a mortuary. He also showed PUNCH Metro a box
recovered from the scene.

He said, “Before we got there, policemen from Railway Police Division had removed the corpse and it has been deposited in a mortuary. We have not seen any of his relatives.

“But if a rail barrier has been mounted on that route, the victim would have been forced to stop.
There should be one there just as it is in Pen Cinema and Ikeja rail tracks.”
The Lagos State Police spokesperson, DSP Kenneth Nwosu, said the track was not under
the jurisdiction of the command.