THE Nigerian Navy has warned tanker drivers who park and block the entrance and exit of Kirikiri town to desist from doing so, so that its personnel deployed on the Kirikiri bridge would always ensure traffic flow on the entrance and exit of Kirikiri town.
The Commander, Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS), Wey, Navy Commodore Celestine Odiase, who gave the warning lamented the blockade of the movement of other vehicles by the tanker drivers who park on Kirikiri bridge.
He said: “It was about 7am when I was alerted. I rushed to the scene and found the gap between my men and area boys.
“They were trying to lynch my men. I saw the leadership of the tanker drivers trying to pacify them but they were demanding that we bring out the ratings for them to kill.
“What truly happened was that there is an arrangement already on ground that they should always leave one lane free and that they should not park on the bridge.
“So, our personnel saw them parking on the bridge and as they made to run away, the conductor jumped down and the tanker crushed him to death.”
He debunked complicity of the Nigerian Navy in the death of the conductor who was identified as Abbas Kasali .
Commodore Odiase, said the incident which occurred on Thursday, saw the conductor crushed to death by his tanker driver, one Ibrahim Salami, who tried to evade arrest for parking wrongly on the bridge.
He said: “You are aware of the stress motorists undergo along the Oshodi/ Apapa Expressway and this axis is access way to one of the busiest seaports in Nigeria.
“These tanker drivers park everywhere and more worrisome is that they park on the Oshodi bridge. You will agree with me that the bridge is old and not built to carry heavy things. It was because of this that the navy decided to deploy unarmed personnel to that area.
On the issue of bribe, Odiase said, “The issue of bribe does not come in and if any of the men had any inclination to do so, they wouldn’t have done it under the watch of a responsible lieutenant commander.
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