Residents and motorists have expressed dissatisfaction over the repeated accidents caused by container-laden trucks plying the bridge along the Ojuelegba area of Lagos State.
They also wondered why the federal and state governments had yet to find a lasting solution to the problem which had led to loss of lives.
PUNCH Metro gathered that some of the trucks which were faulty ended up struggling to ascend the bridge, a development that always caused their containers to fall off and crash on moving vehicles below the bridge.
Three people were rescued on Sunday after one of the trucks conveying a 40ft-container fell off the bridge and crashed on a Toyota Corolla.
It was gathered that the container-laden truck was ascending the bridge when it tripped, fell off and crashed on the vehicle with number plate JJJ-811-FV.
The Director Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Margaret Adeseye, in a statement, said the trapped victims include two male adults and a female.
The statement read in part, “The rescue alert which was triggered at 20:45 hours on Sunday had the Sari Iganmu Rescue Crew of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service among other State Emergency Responders, including sympathisers, rescued alive two male adults and a female adult who are occupants of the car, while the trailer driver with assistant escaped.”
“The three victims are being attended to at the Lagos State Accident and Trauma Centre after being administered first aid on the spot of the accident,” the statement added.
The Sunday accident is the third this year after two containers fell off the bridge earlier in the year, including the one where two children and seven adults were crushed to death.
A resident, Jamiu Anifowoshe, said the government was not doing enough to tackle the problem headlong.
He said, “Containers have been falling off this bridge for years and efforts by the government have not stopped the accident from reoccurring. We had thought that the incident that happened in January would make the government take decisive action that would put a stop to it but nothing serious has happened.”
A business owner in the area, Rasheedat Aina, said the truck drivers kept ignoring a series of warnings against plying the bridge due to the harassment they encountered while taking the alternative route beside the bridge.
She said, “The louts under the bridge always harass motorists, especially the truck drivers, whenever they drive beside the bridge. They stop the truck drivers and demand money from them. Anyone of them that fails to yield to their request will end up being assaulted.”
Our correspondent who visited the location on Tuesday discovered that the barricade mounted at the entry point of the Ojuelegba bridge had been damaged.
Speaking on the discovery, another resident who identified himself simply as Moses said the barricade was damaged the same day it was erected.
When contacted, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Gbenga Omotosho, promised to get back to our correspondent on the matter.
