Tragedy struck on Wednesday along the Benin-Ore expressway in the early hours of Wednesday when suspected gunmen attacked some luxury buses travelling from Lagos to the Eastern part of the country.
It was learnt that two of the buses attacked belong to ‘Young Shall Grow’ Transport Company while the other one is operated by Ifeanyichukwu Motors.
In the incident which occurred between two military checkpoints in Ondo State, one Driver was allegedly shot dead. The robbery attack led to commotion as the ever-busy expressway used by the luxury bus operators was blocked.
According to an eyewitness, the gunmen used a Sienna car which they snatched earlier, to block the Luxury buses which left Jibowu in Lagos on Tuesday night.
The eyewitness said the Sienna car was conveying 3 passengers but the driver was pushed out of the vehicle before they used it to carry out the operation.
“Immediately the luxury bus drivers sighted the roadblock, they sensed that armed robbers were ahead and attempted to retreat but they were waylaid.”
“It was in the process that one of the drivers was killed.” He stated.
Meanwhile, a passenger, who was in a bus with registration number SMK 732 XD, said the driver was killed because he refused to open the passenger cabin for the robbers to enter the bus.
He said, “The robbers were armed to the teeth. They wore army camouflage. They had already shot the driver of a Young Shall Grow bus behind us.”
“The driver whose hand was pierced with bullets would be in his 50s. He must have sacrificed himself to save the passengers because he was the only person who could open the passenger cabin.”
“The robbers then turned to our bus. We were all lying face down. They shot our driver also in the hand but they took to their heels when soldiers were approaching. After they shot our driver, we had to jump out through the window into the bush. We all ran into different directions in the bush and I even had cut in the process.”
Meanwhile, the corpse of the victim has been evacuated by the police who later came to the scene of the crime.