This was just as a naval rating, whose identity was shrouded in secrecy, allegedly dragged the conductor of the same tanker to his death.
According to an eyewitness account, the naval rating was said to have attempted to drag the conductor off the moving tanker and in the process, the latter was crushed to death.
One of the tanker drivers who identified himself as Femi, told that the whole incident was caused by naval ratings who always compel them to part with money against their will.
He said,what happened was that the rating approached the tanker driver to ask for their usual N500 bribe but the driver refused.
According to the tanker driver, he had just started working and so had no money to give. As the driver tried to escape, he crushed a commercial motorcyclist.
Aside killing the motorcyclist, the driver also smashed a saloon car and a tricycle with registration numbers BX 941 ABC and KSF342 QE, respectively.
As the driver of the tanker tried to escape, the naval rating angrily yanked open the door of the moving tanker and tried to drag the conductor down and he fell under the tyres of the tanker and was crushed to death.
Immediately the incident happened, other heavy duty vehicle drivers stormed the area and unleashed mayhem on the naval rating.
It took the intervention of another dispatch of naval ratings from their nearby base to restore peace to the area, as they shot sporadically into the air to disperse the rampaging drivers.
After normalcy was restored, the tanker driver who was identified as Ibrahim Salami, was arrested and detained at the Agboju police station in Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, while the body of the deceased conductor, identified as Abbas Kasali, was deposited at the morgue of the Nigerian Navy Reference Hospital inside Navy Town in Ojo.
When contacted, the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC), Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Raphael Osondu, referred to the commander of the unit at Kirikiri.
Also when contacted, the Commanding Officer, Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Wey, Commodore Odiase, could not confirm the story as he was not in the office when new reporters visits his unit.
However, a senior naval officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, debunked claims that a rating dragged the conductor to his death.
He said: “The trailer had a brake failure and ran over a motorcyclist who died on the spot. The trailer was trying to run from our naval personnel when we stopped it.
“In fact, people also saw when the conductor was trying to put a wedge to stay the tyre. Some of our men went for rescue operations but they were overpowered by the rampaging drivers.
“Granted that we shot our guns but it was professionally done and we only shot into the air because the tanker drivers were trying to mob us. Note that we only recovered the corpse of the motorcyclist.”
But in a late reaction sent, the naval authorities said the rating never killed anyone nor did he attempt to extort money from the drive. The navy maintained that the conductor fell out of the trailer, when the driver tried to evade arrest.
According to the navy, the tanker drivers had unjustly exerted vendetta on the naval rating, pelting him with stones and bottles until reinforcement came from the base.
Commenting on the incident, the national spokesman of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Adebayo Akande, said investigations had begun.
He also said that his association was in touch with the naval base in Satellite Town in Lagos and they would compare notes at the end.
On what line of action the PTD would take if it was discovered that the rating caused the death of the driver, he said: “It is only the national leadership of the union that can take that decision on what next to do if we discover the naval personnel caused the death of one of our own.
The tanker drivers only took advantage of the public holiday to park their trucks near the depots so as to quicken the process of loading their vehicles.
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