Lagos: “Swim inside that gutter!” – Soldiers order transport worker after driver delayed travel by 18 hours
An officer of BestWay Transport Limited got the beating of a lifetime from at least four Nigerians soldiers in Lagos on Thursday.
The officer, we learned, may have suffered for a “crime” he knew little about.
The soldiers were reportedly traveling to the northern part of Nigeria. They were among many passengers a driver with the transport agency allegedly locked and abandoned inside a faulty bus on Wednesday night.
There were about seven corpers in the vehicle. One of them told NewsroomNG what happened.
“BestWay Transport is a useless company,” he began.
“I paid N9,500 to board this bus yesterday (Wednesday). They told us we would take off by 6pm. Around some minutes past 8pm or 9pm, the bus took off from Agege here and drove us to Iddo park, where the driver complained for the first time the vehicle was faulty.
“He then drove us back to Agege saying we couldn’t continue the journey in that bus. Best Way officers didn’t say anything about refunding our money or finding us another bus.
“To my dismay, as we complained, the driver locked us in the vehicle and ran away.
“I’m serving with NYSC in Sokoto and would forfeit my federal allowance if I miss clearance which expires tomorrow (Friday),” he said.
Unknown to the Best Way Motors officers, there were four soldiers in the bus. They all slept inside the vehicle with the other passengers, and were tortured overnight by Lagos mosquitoes, a witness said.
The soldiers, who weren’t in uniform, didn’t take things lightly when another agency officer came to open the doors on Thursday morning.
“The soldiers first disappeared only to reappear in Army uniforms,” a witness said.
“They then identified the ticketing officer. He wanted to run away but they grabbed him and beat him up. They even made him swim inside a gutter. I felt sorry for him.
“They then told him to open the office and refund everyone. As I’m telling you this, almost everyone has been refunded.”
We gathered the bus was heading to Kano and Zaria. Regular passengers paid N9,000 or N9,500 depending on their destinations while the “economy ticket” was N4,500. It’s not clear if everyone had been refunded as at press time.
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Two people were reportedly detained after the case was reported at a nearby police station. We were unable to confirm their identities.
A BestWay Transport official confirmed the incident but said the soldiers and other passengers overreacted.
“I’m in Port-Harcourt right now but I heard about what happened with one of our buses in Agege, Lagos,” the official who doesn’t want to be named told our correspondent.
“Everything you told me you heard is true. I’ll add that (contrary to what a passenger alleged) we actually made provision for another bus on Thursday morning but passengers were protesting and asking why the replacement bus arrived late.
“I also heard soldiers beat some of our workers. It is rather unfortunate that soldiers like to cause trouble.
“I will inform my lawyer and get legal advice on what to do,” he said.
