Each Accident Victim Families, Deserve N20 Million Compensation From Dangote

Each Accident Victim Families, Deserve N20 Million Compensation From Dangote

By: Peter Omonua

Dangote trailers have done lots of damages to the lives of many people and families in Edo State. Incidences of Dangote trailers and their killings all over the country have been ongoing for years without accountability. 

A few years ago, one of his trailers killed 16 people on the spot at Ketu Alapere bus stop. The victims were so fatally crushed that they were unrecognizable. On my visit to the Ikeja General hospital at that time, to identify one of the casualties; it was only by the ring on one of the fingers that i could tell it was our relative. Their faces were totally mangled. 

Within a few weeks after that incidence, it was again reported that another Dangote trailer had killed 10 more people, and that the driver of the vehicle ran away after the incidence.

When these murders happen, there is usually outcry from deceased families, which soon dies down with nothing coming out of it.

Their modus operandi is to ram the trucks into people who are gathered at a bus stop or loaded into a vehicle. As soon as the devilish act is committed, the drivers take to their heels, usually into the bush. 

Some people have even opined that, given the nature and regularity of these Dangote accidents, the quantum of bloodshed and lives lost, they appear pre-planned. To some close observers of the repeat nature of these killings over the years, the incidences and attendant fatalities appear to have occultic and sacrificial intentionality.

The government, through its agencies must promulgate and enforce a law which mandates Dangote and other truck owners to take out insurance policies and must henceforth indemnity families of their victims a minimum of N20 million for each person that is killed as a result of the recklessness of their drivers. Such other commensurate amount should likewise be awarded to other victims with various levels of injuries or incapacitation. 

It is because there is no stiff penalty for the killings by Dangote trucks, over the years and on an ongoing basis, this is why they obviously have no regards for the lives of citizens. This must stop.

They have been getting away with a very light 'slap on the wrist', which has emboldened them. It is also the reason Dangote drivers would have the temerity to threaten other road users that they would crush their cars and kill them, and nothing will come out of it as a punitive measure against them. 

I know of a family whose only daughter was killed by these same Dangote drivers and nothing really happened. Something must now be made to happen anytime they kill people with their recklessness. If his truck kills 10 people in a particular week and Dangote's insurance policy or his organization has to cough out N200 million in compensation to the families of those victims, that would be a deterrent.

There appears to be collusion and compromise between the Dangote organizations on the one hand, the Federal Road Safety Corp and Media houses on the other hand.

The Federal Road Safety seems not to carry out its oversight functions about the activities of these killer trucks on our roads. It may be due to the clout of Dangote and the reach of his influence; but there should be no individual or group that should be above the law of the land, when citizens lives are concerned. That is how the insanity got to where we have gotten today.  

What sort of controls does the FRSC have in place to ensure that only fully trained, tested and licensed drivers get behind the wheels of those killer trucks? What controls are in place to measure the road worthiness of the trucks and the drivers seating in them? How is the alcohol level in the system of those drivers gauged? How are the speed limits checked and monitored? How many hours within a 24-hour window are the truck drivers allowed to be behind wheels? In a Strick regulatory system, a tractor-trailer drivers should not be on the wheel for more than 10 - 12 hours within a 24-hour window, similar to the restrictions on pilots. Fatigue sets in, especially given the nature of the Nigerian roads. The monitoring Units must do better, by enforcing these regulations as compliment to the enactment of these stipulated penalties.

And the media Houses, who should amplify the voices of the victims' families shirk this corporate responsibility.

Why are they not beaming adequate searchlight on the atrocities being committed by Dangote trailers on a daily basis? 

I will not be in doubt, that handsome budget is put in place by Dangote, to influence Media organizations so that they choose to look the other way rather than be the voice of the voiceless against these heinous crimes. It is evident in the nature of their reporting, where reports are presented in nebulous style and language, which masks the owners of trucks or when they run the stories in sections of their publications, which obscures the gravity of the occurrence and, at times, even hardly noticeable. Journalist should not be beholden to the interest of the rich, especially where fatalities occurred.

The above prescribed compensation must be instituted as a deterrent. That is the only effective penalty that will curtail these criminal and dehumanizing occurrences of the Dangote organization and other truck operators.