Three dead, one injured in Uyo-Itu highway auto crash, youths blocked express
Three persons all females were said to have lost their lives while a male was injured in an auto crash that occurred near Akon community along Uyo-Itu highway in Itu local government area of Akwa Ibom state.
It was gathered that the accident occurred on Saturday at exactly 19:45 hours when a Keke driver ran into a mack truck, killing all the three female occupants on board.
Irked by the frequent accidents along the road, Youths from the area barricaded the highway for several hours, causing gridlock that stretched to Odiok Itam; leading to thousands of passengers being stranded as a result of the barricade.
Sources said the youths chanted songs and welded machetes and sticks, scaring away officers of the Road Safety Corps who came for the rescue operation.
Confirming the accident, while speaking on Sunday, the Deputy Corps commander in charge of Operations, David Ironuje described the accident as unfortunate
He said the command has been counseling road users to always take necessary precautions while driving on highways to minimize incidents of road accidents in the state.
“Our prayer is that deaths should be removed completely from our roads, so it so unfortunate that this one happened. Our advice is that the truck driver should not think that they are the owners of the road and the Keke Napep operators on their part should not be meandering along the road; some of them will see a truck coming and will like to quickly meander their way. This is very wrong, they should keep to their lanes. The Ember months are here with us, our prayer is that we will not experience fatal road crashes” he said.
According to him, it took the intervention of the Special Assistant to the Governor Udom Emmanuel on Projects Monitoring for the youths to clear the blockage.
“Yesterday (Saturday) the youths did not allow our boys to conduct rescue operation, they barricaded the road chanting war songs but today the SA to the Governor on Project Monitoring came and was able to pacify the youths before allowing our boys, the road is now clear”, he said.
