Getting to work this morning was relatively easy because I was able to beat the morning rush that characterizes Lagos traffic. But then, I came face to face with one of the consequences of the mad rush by bus drivers as they waltz dangerously with decrepit buses on the Lekki-Epe highway whenever traffic is light enough to permit their combination of overspeeding and reckless maneuvering.
At Ikate roundabout, which is the third roundabout as you drive into Lekki from Lagos mainland, there was a small crowd gathered around a number of injured people. The injured had just been extracted from a Volkswagen Transporter bus which had driven headlong into a canal beside the ring.
The driver was said to have survived, with little or no injuries, and had promptly fled the scene. Some of the passengers had fractures of the limbs, others had very suspicious spinal integrity, and only a minority of them could boast of simple cuts and bruises.
People who claimed to be eyewitnesses said that in the early hours of the morning, the driver had been trying to negotiate the roundabout at a speed that would have inspired shock and awe in the most desperate of lunatics when the bus spun out of control, out of the road, and across the kerb into the canal that lines much of the highway.
As time went on, people contacted by the wounded passengers came to take them to seek medical attention. Shortly, a truck from the Lekki Concession Company LCC arrived to tow the bus away from the scene. Onlookers were aghast at the fact that officials of the government were quick to attempt a removal of the vehicle from the site without giving a thought to the humans who remained at the site, injured and unattended to. Several minutes and many loud protests from bystanders later, one of the LCC officials produced a First Aid box and proceeded to administer first aid to the yet-to-be-evacuated injured passengers.
There were police officers present through much of this period; their presence, in my opinion, was of very doubtful impact.
Just another day on a Lagos road.
