Corps members’ accident: Abia Speaker urges motorists to exercise caution

Mr Chikwendu Kalu, the Speaker, Abia House of Assembly, has called on motorists to exercise caution to prevent unpleasant circumstances, particularly as the Yuletide approaches.
Kalu said this on Thursday at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Umuahia, when he visited members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who were involved in a road mishap.
The speaker advised road users to always ensure proper maintenance of their vehicles before putting them on the roads.
He attributed most accidents on the roads to reckless driving, adding that they can be avoided if caution is exercised.
Kalu said that the lives of Nigerians must be first line charge, even as he called on the Federal Government to expedite action on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that about 18 Corps members were involved in a motor accident on Nov. 12, along Isiala Ngwa junction, near Army Checkpoint, on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway.
The victims, who were members of Batch C, Stream 1, 2018, deployed to Abia, were being conveyed in an 18-seater bus to their places of primary assignments in Aba and Osisioma, after their orientation course at Umuna, Bende Local Government Area.
According to eyewitnesses, who preferred anonymity, the bus had burst tyre and somersaulted twice, thereby leaving about nine of the corps members in critical conditions.
It however took the intervention of the speaker who was in a convoy along the scene to rescue the victims and rushed them to hospitals in Umuahia and Aba.
However, Kalu expressed satisfaction with the attention given to the NYSC members by authorities of FMC, and has undertaken to write off all their cost of treatment.
Dr Stanley Okerulu, who was attending to the victims, expressed satisfaction that they were responding to treatment.
He said that five of the victims had already been discharged, while the remaining four, including three females and a male, were being monitored.
Okerulu, who serves as an intermediary between the hospital and the NYSC, said that two of the patients had clavical fractures and were due for surgery.
He said all the acute challenges had been taken care of, assuring that “we are waiting for them to recover”.