A witness at the ongoing inquiry into the July 4 Ikorodu road mayhem,Mr. Razak Mustapha, told the three-man inquiry tribunal on Wednesday that it was a female soldier who sprayed the Bus Rapid Transit vehicles with petrol before the vehicles were set ablaze.
Three BRT vehicles had allegedly been set ablaze by men of the Nigerian Army at Palmgrove Bus Stop on July 4, 2014, during the violence along the highway that lasted for more than three hours.
The incident led to the death of a soldier. Continue..
Mustapha, a staff of Mutual Model Transp Coort Ltd., a sub-operator of the LAGBUS, appeared before the panel, headed by retired Justice Ebenezer Adebajo, to give his testimony.
The tribunal had been charged with the duty of investigating the said mayhem.
Mustapha, in his testimony, told the tribunal that on July 4, he was assigned by his company to tow a BRT vehicle that had broken down at Palmgrove to the BRT depot.
The witness said he got to the place at about 5.30am on July 4 and was later joined by the company’s mechanic, Mr. Ikechukwu Umeaku.
Mustapha said while he was attempting to start the bus, he discoverd a corpse inside the vehicle and immediately informed his colleague.
He told the tribunal that he and his colleague rushed out of the vehicle and he immediately made a phone call to his boss, giving an account of what he saw.
Mustapha said while he was waiting for further directive, a man approached the bus, climbed in, apparently to see the corpse.
According to Mustapha, it was the man who later informed some soldiers, who were passing by that the corpse of a soldier was lying in the bus.
Mustapha said, “They (the soldiers) came out and entered the bus. They saw the body and checked his identity card. They now assigned two soldiers to guard the bus and left.
“It was when they came back that they started shouting and destroying the bus. Then some of them started stopping other BRT buses that were passing by.
“There was confusion and people started gathering. Then a female soldier came and she started pouring fuel inside the bus.
“After that I saw three buses, one in blue colour and two in red red colour on fire.”
Giving his own version of the story, the mechanic, Umeaku, who was with Mustapha at the time of the incident, told the tribunal that he was assigned to repair the BRT vehicle that broke down at Palmgrove and two other ones at New Garage, Ojota and Orile.
According to Umeaku, the vehicles he was assigned to go and repair had all broken down on July 3 at about 9.00pm.
Umeaku told the tribunal that he only came to Palmgrove after he had gone to fix the other two vehicles which broke down at New Garage, Ojota and Orile respectively.
The witness said when he got to Palmgrove, he saw a crowd of area boys gathered around the bus and so he was unable to approach the bus to carry out his mission.
According to him, the next morning when he returned, he met Mustapha already waiting for him.
“It was when we were inside the bus trying to repair it that Mustapha told me that there was a dead man inside the bus and that we should come down.
“I did not see the body. It was Mustapha who told me. So I ran away and went to report the matter to my boss at the depot,” Umeaku said.
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