Catherine Abeke is a single mother of two and a very busy woman. But for a couple of months now, she has been laying critically ill at a hospital; no thanks to injuries sustained in an accident she had while the driver of a commercial bus she boarded was trying to evade traffic management agents.
When Catherine Abeke left her Ipaja home on Tuesday 2 July, 2013, she had no premonition that she would neither return to her home nor get to her Isheri shop where she was heading that fateful day. She had anticipated a good sale for the day when she took off.
At Isheri bus stop, she alerted the driver that she wanted to alight. The driver brought the bus to a halt, though not at the appropriate place.
It was, however, very close to the designated bus stop. There was someone by the door who stepped down so Abeke could come down. Just that minute she was stepping out of the bus, the driver sighted an official of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, coming out from nowhere.
Without batting an eyelid, the driver was said to have engaged the car and swung the vehicle off the kerb which it originally was and sped off. With Abeke already one step off the vehicle, she could not maintain her balance. Off she rolled on the tarred road with the bus driving over her outstretched limbs. She was badly crushed. Even with this, the bus driver neither slowed down nor stopped.
Rather, he was said to have pressed down the gas pedal more as the vehicle screamed into distance. While speaking with Saturday Mirror at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Lagos where she currently lays in pains receiving treatment, Abeke a single mother of two children disclosed that it all happened within a twinkle of an eye.
The trauma that day, according to her, was so severe that she thought she was going to die. "It happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly and the driver did not even bother to stop or wait. That moment I fell and when the car came climbing on my ankle, I thought that was the end of the road for me. I didn't know I would be able to make it" she said.
Apart from the fact that she was in serious pain, she betrayed no sign of the struggle and suffering she had been facing in her life even before she had the accident. Janet, her younger sister, who lives with her at Iyana Ipaja, a Lagos suburb, explained that the accident was the latest in a series of calamities that had befallen her in recent past.
"Barely two months ago, we lost our mother who was ill for months; we buried her some few weeks before this accident. My sister is a single mother and the situation has been very tough. Now, my sister who is the bread winner is incapacitated," Janet said amidst tears.
According to the doctor who pleaded anonymity, her ankle is badly injured and may have been fractured but treatment is still on and there is still hope for Abeke to be able to use the leg in future. In spite of the pain she is going through at the moment, Abeke is still very grateful to God for sparing her life. "I thank God that I did not die in that terrible accident.
I never imagined this would ever happen to me. And it is so unfortunate that the driver could not even stop to help me but I thank God for his mercies," she noted. It may be recalled that there has been several allegations levelled against LASTMA officials. An instance is the case of Isaac Popoola who died last year after a fierce struggle with an officer of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA.
A national daily report stated that the 54-year-old man breathed his last after the traffic officer allegedly hit his head on a metallic part of a bus as they struggled for control of the steering wheel. Although, the situation is not exactly the same in this instance but if there had been no instances like the former, perhaps what happened to Catherine might not have.
A LASTMA official, Mr S. Onipede, on why the relationship between the commercial drivers and his colleagues is in such a terrible state blamed the lawless nature of the commercial drivers. "If you know you are on your right and you have not committed any offence, why will you be scared to see a LASTMA official or any road monitoring officer?
It is because they are law breakers and don't like to comply with traffic rules, that they are usually on the run. The mission of the agency is to reduce deaths, injuries and economic losses from road traffic accidents, conflicts, congestion and delays on the public highways in Lagos State so why will we want to make people have accidents and get injured or killed? It is simply the lawless attitude of the drivers that makes them want to run each time they sight any official of LASTMA" he said.
However, Tajudeen Abdulahi, a commercial bus driver who shuttles Ikeja to CMS disagrees with Onipede. "Whether you comply with the law or not, the LASTMA officials are ready to deal with you.
I can recall one day, I parked my vehicle at a bus stop to drop a passenger, before I could say Jack, a LASTMA man was already in front of me claiming that the passenger in the front seat did not use the seat belt and that was not true because the man removed the belt when I got to the bus stop so he could alight from the vehicle. The LASTMA official delayed us for over an hour and only released us after serious begging and of course parting with some money.
They can be so mean. After all, they are supposed to be our guide on the road but they will watch you do the wrong thing so that they can arrest you for it. It is only God that will save us from their hands"
National Mirror