Just
as everyone around the world was celebrating the arrival of the 2016 New Year on
1st January, friends and well-wishers of Mr Peter, a pharmacist at the
Chenchennia District, Kaduna Road, Suleja, Niger State, were thrown into sorrow
and mourning for the untimely death that claimed the life of Mr Peter (a.k.a.
Papa Ayo) together with his entire family via a fatal auto crash at Jere area
of Abuja-Kaduna Expressway. All the family members as involved in the accident
were burnt beyond recognition.
According to eyewitnesses who
visited the scene of the accident, it was a horrific sight to behold.
Therefore, the pictures and graphics from the scene of the accident could not
be displayed herein for the purpose of avoiding certain disheartening moments for
the sake of the New Year continual jolly. The victims (that is, the entire
family of Mr Peter)were all burnt beyond recognition as the car burst into
flames after series of somersaults resulted from a deep pothole impact on the
front wheel and the automatic brake applied by the driver.
According to the pharmacist
neighbours who narrated the incidence on the account of eyewitness, Mr Peter
and family were said to be travelling to Zaria on the 31st December,
2015 to be the guests of her elder sister who resides there, to celebrate the
New Year together. Although nobody was actually aware of their intention to
travel until it was on the evening when they started packing their bags, preparing
to engage on the travel. Little was the wonder why they had decided to travel on
a journey of about three and half hours by evening when it is well understood that the condition of most Nigerian
major highways are currently death traps.
On a notable insight, Mr
Peter was not so experienced in driving. He started driving barely four months
ago after acquiring his first car, a Carina E Toyota saloon car. After two
months, he changed the model of his car from Carina E to Toyota Corolla saloon
car. Understandably, he did drive everyday but on a distance not more than five
kilometres on daily regular basis, due to the proximity of his residence to his
pharmacy shop. In such manner, one cannot boldly say he was an expert or very
experienced in the activities of driving a car and similar vehicles. Although some
people may rightly argue that accidents do not always occurred because of
unprofessionalism or non-expertise in driving by the driver, but in reality, a
sane mind knows that most auto accidents on our roads today are caused by
mistakes of the drivers. Such mistakes could arrive as a result of inexperience
or uncanny attitude of the drivers, and in some cases, carelessness, impatience
and lackadaisical mood of drivers.
It requires much of a tactical
experience for a driver to set out on a long journey at night. Even when the
journey is not up to a fifty kilometres distance, many drivers always reject
night driving because of the fatality and dangers that do accompany it. You
cannot imagine that some people who have been driving for the past ten years,
still recede in their zeal to engage in night driving even within the town as
they always pronounce that it is not always clear at night as compared to day
time when everything is utmost visible.
In the dark evening of 31st December, 2015, Mr Peter with his pregnant wife and their two little sons set out for Zaria in Kaduna State, a journey of about 250 kilometres from Suleja; and which could take up to three and half hours during the daytime. According to their neighbours, it was when they entered their car to depart their Suleja home for Zaria that, they announced to their neighbours they were actually going on such a long journey. Even when the neighbours tried to advise them against the impeding danger of travelling at such hour, little attention did Mr Peter pay as he was so much confident in the will of God as a devoted Christian. He did not believe that the power of evil could over power any decision ordained by God. In his believe of ‘what will be, will be’ phenomenon, he with his entire family, locked themselves in their Toyota Corolla car, and set out on a ‘journey of no return’.
Currently, the Abuja-Kaduna
Expressway is in bad shape. The highway is now mostly filled with both deep and
shallow potholes. It takes an experienced driver who regularly plies this route
to be able to manoeuvre his way through with care and without any hiccup during
afternoon while the sun illuminates everywhere. This same fate cannot be said
of the driver who plies this route at night. No matter how careful and
experience, he may not be able to manoeuvre through all the potholes, unless he
is on a limited speed of about 60km/h-70km/h. It is no longer safe currently
for any driver to ply this route at night even at a speed limit between
80km/h-90km/h. But, eyewitnesses reported that Mr Peter was on a relative speed
of above 80km/h before the ill-fate accident that ended his life together with
his entire family’s occurred.
Around a junction commonly
regarded as Jere Junction, Mr Peter sped past as if he was eager to catch a
departing flight schedule at the airport. Unknown to him, from that point
onwards, the potholes are more in numbers and deeper. And at night time, many
of such potholes are relatively invisible to the normal vision of the driver. Such
was the case when the pharmacist sped into a deep pothole that burst his front
tyre and sent the car flying in the air in series of somersault. Many believed
that due to the driving inexperience of the driver, he must have matched hard
on the brake pedal when the tyre got burst by the pothole and this is always
discouraged especially by driving tutors or schools. The car on landing with
its roof exploded and inflamed in fire. The explosion was so intense that no
effort render by fellow passerby drivers could accord any meaningful or
salvaging impact. All witnesses and onlookers watched as the car with its occupants
flamed up and burnt to the bones. The bodies of the entire family were burnt
beyond mere recognition. It was the little part of the head of Mr Peter, which
was not so burnt as the body, that aided neighbours who later arrived at the
scene to recognize that it was actually him and his family that were involved
in the ghastly accident. It was indeed an abnormally horrific sight to behold!
What actually weighed down
the sympathisers and the condolers was the fact that no one was at the victims’
home to take condolences. Just as usually the case, when a husband demises
suddenly, the wife takes the condolences and entertains the sympathisers with either
mourning or weep; and vice versa. In this case of Mr Peter and family, none of
such happened. Both the husband and wife together with their two children
demised horrifically and without their normal corpses for burial except their
burnt skeletal structures. What a horror at a year-end!
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