Visiting American footballers survive auto crash
From Chris Garba, Abuja
THE visiting Nigeria-born American footballers yesterday at Dutse-Alhaji, a suburb 25 kilometres along the Abuja-Kaduna Highway, involved in an auto crash when a petrol tanker rammed into the luxury bus in which they were travelling.Nobody in the bus was hurt, but the rear of the vehicle was badly dented.
The visitors were returning from Bwari, a satellite town 45 kilometres from the city centre. They had gone there to meet the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), who was to receive them earlier in his office at 9.a.m. On getting to Bwari, the visitors were informed that the minister had just finished commissioning a project and was on his way to Oshafa Village for another occasion.
The visitors were just entering the village when the minister's convoy made a U-turn. Efforts to catch up with his convoy failed. It was when they were on the way back to the city that the accident occurred. The accident occurred at the Dutse-Alhaji/ Kubwa junction, when the police escort that led the bus was cleared to pass and as the bus followed, a petrol tanker ignored the traffic warden's signal to stop and rammed into the rear of the bus. The tanker driver later confessed that he had break failure.
Speaking to newsmen at the scene of the accident, consultant to the organisers of the visit, Max Gbanite, said it was unfortunate that the minister had to be dribbling the visitors about after he had approved the courtesy visit to hold at 9.00 a.m. in his office, describing the action as insensitive.
But Press Secretary to the minister, Don Bassey, in a telephone interview, claimed there was no notice of the visitors' courtesy visit, saying: "I am not aware. In fact, this is the very first time I am hearing about them." Commenting on the accident, one of the footballers, Amobi Okoye, said the accident could have happened anywhere, but added that he thought the citizens should have been changing in character just as the country was changing.
"It was a case of lack of patience on the part of the tanker driver," he said. "I think if he had had a little patience, the accident would not have happened in the first place."
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