Scores of students of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye yesterday went on rampage and destroyed 11 trucks and products worth millions of Naira belonging to the alleged owner of the vehicle that crushed 12 of their colleagues last Friday.
For about three hours, the grieving students barricaded the Sagamu-Benin Expressway scene of the fatal crash, the action forced many of the motorists plying the route to make a quick detour and take alternative routes.
The students who had thronged the Ilishan axis of expressway to stage a peaceful rally and offer a prayer for the repose of the accident victims, turned violent at the site of the accident, which was littered with wreckage of the bus the deceased students were travelling in. They similarly called for investigation in to the incessant crashes along the road.
The students all dressed in black, were conveyed to the scene of the accidents in five buses with the Olabisi Onabanjo University officials directing their conduct.
Also, securitymen and road traffic officials were positioned along the junctions in the area directing the traffic.
Some of the students were wailing and rolling on the road, while some sang a dirge, after which they prayed and observed a minute silence in honor of the their departed colleagues.
Addressing journalists after the prayer, however, the president of the Students Union Government of the university, Comrade Adenola Adegbesan called on the government to investigate the incessant crashes along the road caused by the recklessness of drivers and negligence of security men along the road.
Other students also decried the negligence and complicity of some security agents in the frequent accidents along the Sagamu-Benin express way.
Meanwhile, the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC in Ogun state, Mr. Adetunji Adegoke denied the allegation of negligence on the part of his men and noted that drivers only obey traffic rules when they sight FRSC officials.
He, however blamed the long distance between the accident scene and the hospital where the victims were taken to for the incessant rejection of road accident victims by the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital at Sagamu.
The protesting students who completely took over a long stretch of the expressway, also attacked drivers of two container-bearing trailers and another laden with cement. While the two container-bearing trailers escaped amidst missiles being thrown at them by the students, the cement-laden trailer was not that lucky.
The students succeeded in bringing it to a halt, vandalizing the vehicle and attacking the driver, who immediately fled the scene along with his assistant.
The students have however demanded compensation for their colleagues who died in the auto crash.
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