About six persons, including a mother and her two babies aged between two and three years, during the weekend lost their lives in a fatal motor accident along Iwukem, Etim Ekpo in Akwa Ibom State.
It was gathered that two commercial vehicles, a bus and a cab collided at Ikot Ese portion of the Afahaobong-Iwukem road and six persons died on the spot.
According to a nurse at the Divine Love Hospital, were the victims were taken to, “Six victims were already dead on arrival. We battled frantically to save some souls, but this place is too small to address such emergencies because we lack basic facilities and blood because some had lost so much blood at the time they were brought here.”
The nurse, who pleaded anonymity, added that, “Since we don’t have mortuary facility here, the corpses were later moved to the nearby General Hospital at Azumini, Abia State.
“Please, let us be more conscious and watchful as we drive on the road because what I have seen today is so shocking, especially the death of the young mother with her two babies age between two and three years.”
She appealed to the government to equip and provide essential facilities, personnel and other essential materials “for us to be able to take care of emergencies.”
When contacted, the spokesman for the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Akwa Ibom Sector Command, Mr. Justice Agwu, confirmed the incident, but blamed road users for recklessness.
“We have gone to Churches distributing leaflets and other safety literatures for the people to be sufficiently enlightened on how to imbibe road and safe driving routine”, Agwu said, lamenting that “while some Churches welcome us to talk to the people, others would not grant us audience”.
To further instill the safety culture in the consciousness of the road users, Agwu disclosed that an open-air awareness and enlightenment programme on road safety would be mounted in the next couple of days at the Ibom Plaza, within the city centre.
He said strict enforcement of speed limiter regime has been in force with commercial vehicle operators, disclosing that it could be extended to cover every vehicle by next year.
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