A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vehicle has killed a man identified as Guyman in the Ketu area of Lagos State.
The accident occurred at about 8:30am on Wednesday, according to eyewitnesses.
Guyman had just left a Zenith bank branch located some metres away from Mile 12 International Market where he went to process a transaction when the bus knocked him down on a BRT lane.
With passengers on the bus, FIJ learned that the bus driver stopped to check the victim on the ground. After discovering that Guyman had died, he left the scene.
A Lagos State ambulance invited to pick the man later left upon discovering that he had died. His body was left on the BRT lane while sympathisers gathered at the spot in their numbers.
An FIJ reporter saw that some police officers monitoring BRT lanes arrived at the scene shortly after the ambulance departed.
A Lagos State ambulance, called to pick the dead, leaves the scene without picking him.
One of the police officers, who searched the victim’s pockets, also confirmed from an NNPC filling station nearby that Guyman was indeed killed by a BRT bus.
The policemen picked Guyman’s First Bank ATM card and a Shoprite card found in his pocket. The police suspected that some people could have stolen his money and handset immediately he died.
Each BRT bus has a unique code inscribed boldly on them. When FIJ enquired from a male eyewitness, who refused to mention his name, he said he did not note down the vehicle’s code.
Some furious young men, hitting their hands on the passing BRT buses, later came to the spot and identified the man as their brother in the area who they were together with early Wednesday morning before he left for the bank.
While the police were waiting for a government bus to come and pick the body, the furious men were trying to contact Guyman’s family on how to retrieve his body before the government took possession of it so as to avoid paying any money to secure its release for burial. But his body was still on the ground as of the time FIJ left the scene.
The Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) oversees the operations of BRT buses in the state.
When FIJ visited the LAMATA head office in Ketu to request comments on the incident, Adebayo Gbadamosi, a customer relations officer, said the organisation would investigate to identify the identity of the bus and the driver.
“We will investigate the incident,” he said. “If it was our bus, we will identify the bus and its driver and inform the public about the progress of our investigation through our social media handles.”
