Matilda Omonaiye/
A routine overnight journey from Onitsha to Lagos ended in tragedy after a passenger was killed and several others injured in a crash that the police are now treating as a possible deliberate act by the driver following an argument inside the moving bus.
The driver, identified by police as Ifeanyi Okwuaja, was arrested after the incident involving a bus belonging to Abia City Mass Transit.
According to accounts circulating widely on social media, Okwuaja allegedly engaged in a heated dispute with a front-row passenger seated beside him while driving the fully loaded commercial bus from Onitsha, Anambra State, to Lagos.
Witnesses claimed the argument escalated during the journey, with the driver allegedly threatening to “deal with” the passenger.
The crash occurred near Ijebu Ode in Ogun State.
Passengers alleged that the driver suddenly swerved towards a parked truck on the passenger’s side of the road, causing a violent collision that crushed the section where the passenger had been seated.
The passenger was reported to have died instantly, while several other occupants of the bus sustained varying degrees of injury and were taken for medical treatment.
What has intensified public outrage is the allegation that the driver abandoned the bus after the crash and fled the scene, returning to his home before he was later tracked down and arrested by law-enforcement authorities.
The incident gained attention after a viral video emerged online in which a narrator described the sequence of events and accused the driver of intentionally causing the collision following the confrontation with the passenger.
Police authorities have confirmed the arrest of the driver and said an investigation is under way to determine the circumstances surrounding the crash, including whether it resulted from dangerous driving, negligence or an intentional act.
Abia City Mass Transit had not issued a detailed public statement on the allegations against its driver at the time of filing this report.
The case has sparked widespread reactions online, with many Nigerians demanding that anyone found responsible for deliberately endangering passengers should face prosecution to the full extent of the law.
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