No fewer than14 persons yesterday lost their lives in a ghastly motor accident along Magongo-Okene road in the state.
The state Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr. Godwin Omiko, informed journalists in Lokoja that the accident involved three vehicles, saying that the accident happened at a spot close to the border area between Kogi and Edo States.
He said the victims were mostly public health officers in the employ of the Local Government Service Commission, Kaduna State.
According to him, the public health officers were 400-level students travelling to Cotonou, Republic of Benin, to write their first semester examination at Houdegbe North American University.
Omiko said a female child on the trip with her mother also died in the accident.
He said the accident occurred when a Toyota bus with registration number Kogi LG 25 DAH rammed into an oncoming Toyota Hiace passenger bus with registration number Lagos AAA 463 XD which also hit another vehicle in the front.
Due to the heavy impact, the Sector Commander said the passenger bus immediately caught fire, thereby burning 14 of the passengers beyond recognition.
He said three victims, including a female child were rescued alive by the FRSC officials but the child later died in the hospital a few hours later.
Omiko said 12 of the victims had been given mass burial at the public cemetery at Magongo in the presence of policemen from Ogori-Magongo police division while the corpses of the female child and two other male adults were still at the morgue of the General Hospital, Obangede at the time filling in this report.
He said one Idris Abdulahi, the driver of the Toyota Hiace bus with registration number Kogi: LG 25 DAH believed to be responsible for the crash had been arrested and is now in police custody.
The Sector Commander said preliminary investigation revealed that the driver was heavily drunk and drove recklessly which caused the accident.
