22 DIE IN ROAD ACCIDENT
No fewer than 22 people were killed in two separate road accidents on Sunday. Fourteen of them, according to road traffic authorities reportedly died on Kware-Illela Road in Sokoto State on Sunday. Twenty-one others were injured in the accident, which involved an articulated vehicle travelling toward Illela and a Toyota Starlet car coming towards Sokoto, the police said on Monday.
In another development, eight people were also reported dead while several others were injured in a auto-accident on Sunday on Gaidam-Damaturu road in Yobe.
NAN reported that the mass transit bus, coming from Gaidam to Damaturu swerved off the road to avoid a camel crossing the highway and an upcoming truck.
According to The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) many of the victims who died in the Kware-Illela mishap were nationals of the neighbouring Niger Republic.
While the injured are receiving treatment at Usmanu Danfodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, the dead have been buried at Giginyu Cemetery by the hospital authorities.
The Sokoto State Commissioner for Health, Dr Jabbi Kilgori, said Governor Aliyu Wamakko, with his counterpart from Tahoua in Niger Republic, had visited the injured in the hospital.
Kilgori said Wamakko, while commiserating with the victims, announced that the state government would pay the medical bills of the injured.
Kilgori said the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Yakubu Ahmed, had been informed of the state government's intention to settle the bills.
It was learnt that the police in Kware carried out the rescue operation at the accident scene.
Both the spokesman for Sokoto Police Command, ASP Lawal Abdullahi, and the Sector Commander of the FRSC in the state, Alhaji Aliu Gadzama, confirmed the accident.
The Secretary, Damaturu Specialists Hospital, Alhaji Habu Sani, confirmed that the bodies of the victims were deposited at the hospital morgue while the injured were receiving treatment.
When NAN visited the hospital, relations and sympathisers were at the mortuary to claim the bodies for burial.
Muhammad Usman, a relation of one of the injured whose brother suffered fracture on both legs said: 'We thank God he is alive.'
'He is a mechanic, he was travelling with his a colleague, who also suffered fracture, to repair a broken down car.'