Lagos Road Crash: Housewife Still Missing 12 Days Later

After a 12-day search for a female passenger, Mrs. Beatrice Akinola, who was aboard a bus alongside 21 other passengers when it crashed outside a filling station on December 28, 2023, the husband’s family is seeking help to locate the whereabouts of the Lagos-based wife.

Reports gathered on Monday that the accident was said to have occurred about a few minutes’ drive to Ogere Remo on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

Our correspondent gathered that the search for Omoyeni hit the rock following a futile search after the bus she boarded was said to have somersaulted several times before going up in flames.

Lamenting that their efforts are becoming a wild goose chase, the Badagry-based family urged the state government agencies to help in the search for the woman.

Narrating how the accident occurred on Monday, the husband of the missing lady, Pastor Emmanuel Akinola, said, “She was on a journey from Ibadan to Badagry. She boarded a vehicle at Iwo Road. This was very close to the Ogere Toll Gate. She was with our last son when the accident happened.

He continued, “The boy is about 10 years old. It was through him that the doctors told us that they were involved in an accident and that nothing happened to him. After picking him up, we checked around but couldn’t find the mother. We went to the Federal Road Safety Corps and police offices.

The FRSC officers told us to go and check the bodies in Ring Road Adeoyo Hospital. Out of the five bodies we saw, three were children, and the other two were adults. They said the driver and one other person were the two adults.

Akinola told PUNCH Metro that the family had been to various places, including the scene of the accident and the hospital’s morgue in Oyo State, without seeing any glimpse of his wife.

He said, “I checked all the bodies; I could not find my wife. We proceeded to the University College Hospital, Ibadan, where three people were taken for intensive medical attention. Out of 22 passengers, we were only able to see 12 dead or alive.

“This is what gave us the impression that maybe passersby who saw that some of the passengers needed urgent medical attention took some of the injured to the hospital before the road safety officials turned up because we were told the vehicle somersaulted several times before it caught fire.

We reported the matter at a police station. They asked whether we wanted a case, and I told them that I was just looking for my wife.”

Also speaking, a family friend identified simply as Felix urged the authorities involved to come to the aid of the family in locating the whereabouts of the woman.

They have seen the son who was on the journey with her, but they have yet to see the wife. They have gone to the morgue and all the other places in search of Beatrice. The family needs all the help it can get from this woman,” Felix pleaded.

When contacted, the spokesperson for the Oyo State Police Command, Adewale Osifeso, was unavailable for comment as of the time this report was filed.