By Okosun Dennis
Welcome to Lagos, the Mega-City of Nigeria. Really! it remains one of the most populated, industrial Cities in Nigeria with an array of opportunities that have endeared it to millions of foreigners and other Nigerians from multifarious cities.
Unfortunately, just as it boasts of good opportunities, recent happenings bordering on crimes and ritualistic murders, have left tongue wangling and lips quivered.
It remains one city in Nigeria where nightlife rose to its apogee; workers getting home late courtesy of the notorious traffic snarl-up.
Over a decade ago, precisely March 2008, the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was launched to provide growing Lagos commuters with clean, affordable, and reliable means of getting around Lagos in air-conditioned buses.
To make that work effectively and efficiently, it runs on a dedicated corridor; making it to avoid congestion on the road. Interestingly, this has been the opium that drives massive urbanised transportation systems with exponential patronage.
Operated by the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) as the project developer, other subsidiaries like Premiera joined in operating the services.
Unfortunately, BRT with its high-quality bus-based system that boasts over 200,000 daily passengers, has suddenly nosedived, turning to a trap of death; where journeys are truncated and commuters delivered to the emissaries of death.
Oluwabamise Ayanwola’s Death
The unfortunate adoption and killing of the 22-year-old fashion designer on February 26, 2022, has thrown up so many security issues. It has further accentuated the fact that life has become short, brutish, nasty, and meaningless. The meaninglessness lays credence to the fact that government seems helpless, toothless as nothing much have been done, despite humongous budgetary allocation, to provide the primary objective of governance – Security for the citizens.
Since the BRT bus evolved, it has been the toast, the pride of Lagosians. Proudly, some private car owners prefer plying it for obvious reasons including beating traffic gridlock. Those that leave home very early in the morning, derive joy boarding it. For those that also close late and want to beat the traffic and safety concern, they rush to board because of the comfort, reliability, and cost-effectiveness among other attributes providing charging points for their phones.
Lagosians trusted the BRT. There has not been a security concern. No love has been lost until now. Hitherto, trust has not only been lost; it is now insecure and unreliably dangerous to board. The event of 26th February that saw the first adoption on board the bus has turned laughter to sadness, play to sorrow, and joke to everlasting loss. Oluwabamise Ayanwola became a child of circumstance. An expensive joke has been taken beyond the abyss.
Essentially, passenger traffic on BRT increased soon after some night marauder called “one-chance” robbers turned commuting in commercial vehicles as a cesspool for losses of personal items – phones and money – sometimes, ending in mindless attacks and brutalization. It became worst when other criminally minded people began to attack passengers early in the morning and late in the evening without corresponding dislodgement by law enforcement agents.
The devilish exhibition of Andrew Nice Omininikoro, the 47 years old driver, who allegedly adopted and killed Oluwabamise Ayanwola, is a confirmation that the government both at the state and national levels are losing security grips.
Despite battling with terrorism, kidnapping, banditry, ritual killings, and other sundry organised crimes, the facts are that everything seems to slip off. This becomes more complicated considering it is a government-owned transport service that should be safer and devoid of such a scenario.
Who BRT Recruit As Drivers?
Andrew Nice, the BRT driver that allegedly adopted and killed Oluwabamise Ayanwola, how nice has he being to his passengers? What are his track records in criminal engineering? Has he been involved in such malfeasances unknown to history?
Honestly, without inhibition, Nice’s crap narrative portrayed him as a criminal whose cup is full and has no means of an escape. It is only a heartless demon who would be hijacked by kidnappers, had his cherished passengers dragged out before he zoomed off, wouldn’t have the milk of human kindness in him to report to a police station or the management of his experiences for prompt action?
His culpability was exacerbated considering that soon after parking his bus, he abandoned his house, fled, and want people with blood flowing in their veins to believe his crab narratives that lacked logic and common sense.
With a confessional statement by another girl recently that on 25 November 2021, the suspect allegedly raped her inside the bus before Chevron Bus stop after threatening to kill her with a knife if she refused his sex advances to her, would be further proof after diligent investigation, that Nice has been a monster under the cover of Lagos State Government to terrorise hapless commuters especially the women for his personal sex aggrandizement.
It could also go to show Lagos State Government’s insistence on running a Mega City might just be a fluke considering the hell commercial vehicles and passengers go through in the hands of Agberos that have infested the city; with mega posture; like a behemoth.
This development brings to question: Is the management of LAMATA carrying out due diligent profiling of their employees? Don’t they monitor their behavioural patterns in line with their work ethics? It would be apt to suggest that if the driver hadn’t sinister motives or not directly linked with the concocted kidnappers he claimed hijacked him with a gun, how come he left Ilaje bus stop terminal in Ajah back to Oshodi without having passengers; a time in Ajah that there is beehive of commuters heading to Oshodi?
When did the luxurious Primera BRT began to pick passengers on the way? How come between Ilaje, Ikonta, Eleganza till Chevron bus stop, he didn’t pick passengers? How come, also, the inside light was switched off, a practice alien to the BRT bus especially when passengers are onboard? These are numerous questions a team of police investigators should unravel in the course of their deepened investigations.
Excuses
It is sad that Governor Sanwo-Olu would audaciously tell the world that the particular bus Oluwabamise Ayanwola boarded had no CCTV camera because it was locally assembled and supplied.
Expectedly, one would have thought that the state government knowing such shortcoming would have improvised and make alternative arrangements to install CCTV in such buses regardless of whether locally assembled.
To leverage on that as a flimsy excuse not to have images of what actually transpired is a smack on the collective sensitivity and sensibility of Lagosians. Credit must go to the late Oluwabamise for her ingenuity and smartness to have done far beyond what Lagos State Government couldn’t do, sending video clips of her fears and conversations with her friend that gave out the driver and his dubious ritualistic adventurism.
A reasonable government that have the interest and security of the citizens; particularly commuters at heart, would have made arrangements for providing such facility for its buses after the #Endsars protest and riot in October 2021, that led to the destruction of buses worth over N2 billion irrespective of where it was procured?
Sanwo-Olu’s media Aid, Gboyega Akosile’s statement that there were no inbuilt cameras in buses acquired locally to shore up the BRT fleet, is the most uncharitable and unwise statement, especially at a tensed moment like this.
Adding that “The particular bus in which the slain victim rode was one of the buses locally supplied,” shows our poverty-stricken technological ingenuity as a nation and supposedly “Giants of Africa.”
Family Members Reacts
Oluwabamise Ayanwola’s family is distraught, overwhelmed with the tragedy of losing a vibrant young girl with a promising future.
The atmosphere in the family house is cold, subdued by his loss. When Pelumi Ayanwola spoke, tears flew like River Nile. The summation of his narration and the good memory the younger sister has left is: “We want justice for Bamise.”
The heavily pregnant elder sister wept like a baby that lost his only coin. She said, “Everybody loves her. She is accommodating, friendly, and receptive. She was supposed to sew my maternity gown. I saw her last two weeks ago. Bamise doesn’t deserve to die.
“The government was supposed to fight for her. She was not supposed to die. I trust the government but the government put me to shame. They made me to realise I don’t deserve them as a government; they made me to realise that I am not safe, even in my family.
“I don’t think we are safe boarding a Lagos State Government bus. I am in shock. I don’t know what to do. I want justice. Everybody that knows or is responsible for her death; I want justice to prevail on them. They made me weep. A 22 years old girl! I didn’t see this coming. I want them to suffer; I want them to go through what I am going through. All I want is nothing but justice for my sister, Bamise.”
Nigerians Reacts
Since the news of the missing girl broke in a government owed and controlled bus, Lagosians went Gaga. The reaction was gargantuan.
A man who spoke anonymously said this is a confirmation that the present government at all levels have failed to provide security for Nigerians. “When I was growing up, cases of killings were rare. Hardly you see spilled blood on television, but today, blood is like morning tea. Toddlers see blood flowing every day.
“Children as young as three years knows what kidnapping is and their obnoxious activities. They see blood shed by bandits and terrorists. The society is at its edge” he reiterated.
Condemning the killing of Oluwabamise at Ebute Ero, Speaker Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa who spoke with protesters on Tuesday at the Assembly House, Alausa and asked them to calm down their nerves.
The erroneous belief that it would be swept under the carpet is unnecessary. The driver has been arrested and is in custody. We are watching and must ensure justice is done on the case.
“The Governor has spoken about it and I just want to appeal that we work together to get justice. We will do everything to make sure that justice is served. Justice must be served. And everybody in Lagos must be protected.”
Also reacting, the National Coordinator, of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, on the discovery of Oluwabamise’s corpse said since those who allegedly “committed the heinous crime were employees of Lagos government who also used government facility to perpetuate the crime, Lagos State Government must pay N1 billion damages to the family of the victim.”
The human rights group said it was prepared to engage the Lagos State government in a lawsuit to get justice for the victim’s family.
“What this incident has shown is the legal liability of the Lagos state government because the bus and the facility where Oluwabamise Ayanwola was kidnapped belongs to the Lagos state government,” Onwubiko stated.
Charged To Court, Reminded In Prison
It gladdens the minds of followers of the unfolding story of Andrew Nice Omininikoro that he has been docked and reminded for 30 days but of interest to Nigerians are what happens next?
Have others co-travellers as explained by the late Oluwabamise arrested? How is the Nigerian Police handling the case of the girl who allegedly accused the driver of also raping her inside the bus in 2021? Will her case be a passing glance?
However, how well this case is investigated will tell on the investigative prowess of the Nigerian Police and how well justice is gotten for the family. It will also prove the worth of the Lagos State Government to defend the less privileged in the society and uphold the sanctity of her Mega City concept that is at the abyss of collapse as a result of this case.
As it is, until justice is gotten for Oluwabamise Ayanwola, her family and others who might have fallen victim of the BRT bus driver, the last story is yet to be heard.
https://any.peopleandpowermag.com/brt-harbinger-of-death/
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