Akure explosion: No one told me we were transporting bombs, says truck driver

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Isiaka Yinusa, the driver who drove the truck that exploded in the Akure North local government area at Ilu-abo community last Saturday, said he was not aware that he was carrying explosives.

Isiaka is still recovering from the surgery that he underwent to extract shrapnel from his stomach while being rushed to the unconscious hospital.

He said the last thing he heard before he went blank and ended up at the hospital was ‘everybody run’

While speaking in an interview monitored on the Ondo State Radiovision Corporation (OSRC), Isiaka said his boss had reached out and directed him to transport some unknown items from a stuck truck at the Osu axis along the Ife-Ibadan expressway.

The driver said after the package was moved from the stranded vehicle to his, they headed to Edo State where they were expected to deliver the consignment to a firm in Auchi, headquarters of the local government area of Estako West.

Isiaka said he left Osu for Auchi in the company of a police escort and another employee of the firm where the mysterious consignment was to be delivered.

According to him, however, when they arrived Akure end of Shasha market, his truck became defective. As a result, they decided to spend the night at the market.

He said he was sleeping inside the truck when one of the police escorts and the firm’s staff advised him to leave the area as a matter of urgency because of the number of people in the area, as smoke was already radiating from under the truck.

Since I did not know how dangerous the consignment in the truck was, I was still insisting that we should linger there but when I noticed that the police escorts team were not in a mood for argument, I had to oblige them.

“After extinguishing the generated smoke under the car, we quickly moved towards the Owo axis as the policeman who led the escort team continued to shout to his phone while sitting next to me”

“As we were approaching Ogbese, after Eleyowo community, the policemen in the escort vehicle begun flashing us that we should stop. As we touched down from the truck, I noticed that fire had started coming out from under the truck again. We quickly made attempt to extinguish the fire with fire extinguisher as other vehicles parked.”

“They all tried to help. Suddenly, the policemen started shouting “everybody run! Everybody run!”.

All the vehicles around us, including the police escorts, took off and as I was running, I heard a bang, and felt something in my abdomen. That was the last I knew until I woke up in this hospital bed”.

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