By Favour Goodness
One person died and three others sustained various degrees of injuries on Thursday at the notorious Upper Iweka, Onitsha, Anambra state over a bloody clash between the emblem revenue agents and a tipper driver.
It was gathered that trouble started when the tipper driver was coming from the Bridgehead end of the River Niger, Onitsha.
According to an eyewitness who simply identified himself as Onyeji, “on getting to Upper Iweka, one of the emblem revenue agents, mounted on the tipper ladened with sand and demanded from the driver the emblem payment receipts for one year”.
“The driver told him that he had the receipts with him only that he had not placed them on the windsreen for easy identification.
On the process the revenue agent demanded for some money (bribe) but the driver told him he had no money with him and that he had the receipts.
He said the revenue agent forced his hand inside to collect money and the driver pushed him down.
“He mounted the tipper again and started struggling the steering with the driver as the vehicle was descending and both of them fell off the tipper.
“The vehicle was then out of control and crushed to death a driver with one of the popular transport companies crossing to the opposition side of the expressway after repairing his tyres,” he said.
He said that about three of the occupants of the bus who sustained various degrees of injuries thanked God that they escaped death by the whiskers.
The witness added that, while the duo, tipper driver and the agent were still in the browl, injurying themselves, colleagues of the revenue agent rushed and hit the driver with clubs, planks and whisked their injured colleague away in a tricycle, abandoning the tipper driver to his faith.
Sympathisers and angry youths who reportedly rushed to the scene to mob the revenue agents wore long faces when they were told that the agents had fled.
He said that the angry youths cursed the state government especially the Commissioner for Transport for allowing the existence of multiple levies/taxations, adding that there should be a unified receipt for all road revenue collections to help stop touting.
“The state government and Commissioner for Transport should see to the burial cost of the dead driver, get a wife for him if he was not married, compensate the tipper driver and sack all revenue agents on the road including the emblem agents and others immediately,” he said.
The tipper driver was said to have been rushed to an undisclosed hospital where he was placed on danger list.
Confirming the incident, a senior police officer at Awada police station where the case is lodged, who pleaded anonymity, said the corpse of the unfortunate driver (passer-by victim) , was deposited at Toronto hospital, Onitsha.
