Today, January 23rd 2022 makes it a year the unforgettable Akungba-Akoko road accident happened.
On January 23rd, 2021, there was a road accident in the Akungba-Akoko area of Ondo State, the community hosting the state-owned government tertiary institution, Adekunle Ajasin University.
The accident which was caused by one of the trailers of Dangote cement owned by Aliko Dangote, happened very close to the school main gate and claimed the lives of students and community residents.
Some of the students whose lives were claimed in the sad occurrence include the former Students’ Union President of the school, Adesomojo Samuel Tobi known as Sampraise; the first-ever female President in Business Administration and the only female departmental President in the 2019/2020 academic session, Oluwaseun Ojinni, (Topmost); Pope Kelvin Ojini and his brother; a 300 level student of English and Literary Studies department, Atere Odunayo; traders and some other students other souls to the Akungba road accident.
Few of the accidents that happened on the road include that of 20th of September, 2020 and the 31st of October, 2020.
On October 31st of 2020, this reporter had written to the Ondo State Governor via Twitter, notifying him of the rise of accidents on the road. Only for the community and the entire State to experience an ugly one than that.
It was learnt that families of the deceased were compensated by the Dangote company but this did not stop the students of the school from protesting on the streets of Akungba and also embarked on a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #AkungbaAccident in January 2021.
The hashtag spread from a local community of Akungba to towns and cities across the country. Influencers such as Rinu Oduala; Therapist, Mr Macaroni, others engaged and tweeted on the sad incident. The hashtag at the end lasted on the top trend of the micro-blogging app, Twitter.
The January 23rd accident forced the management of the school to shut down the institution’s main gate since January 2021 to date.
However, despite this, another accident had happened recently on this same road on the 20th of January, 2022.
Tributes, cries are not enough to bring back the late souls but we pray God consoles families of the deceased.
Adieu to all the beautiful souls whose lives were cut short in all these incidents and related ones across the country.
Author
Olufemi Damilola is a versatile, cerebral and eloquent media personnel who has won several media awards and finds interest in service to humanity through writing.
Good but sad story. We hope the government find something urgently to do about these roads.