The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency says a total number of 1,305 cases of road traffic accidents have been recorded in the state since January.
The Permanent Secretary of the Agency, Damilola Oke-Osanyitolu, in a statement on Wednesday said these included 507 vehicle accidents and 798 truck and tanker accidents.
The LASEMA boss added that the agency successfully attended to 6,887 incidents in the last five years of the Governor Babajide Olushola Sanwo-Olu administration from 2019.
The statement read, “During the period under review (January 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024), the agency successfully attended to 1,461 incidents last year between January 1, 2023, and December 31, while 445 incidents were successfully attended in the first quarter of this year, between January 1, 2024, and March 31, 2024, making a total of 1,906 incidents attended by the agency during the period.
“In the period under review, the road accident category ranked second with 507 cases, which comprises 471 vehicle accidents, 19 fallen containers, and 17 others.
“The truck/tanker category ranks first with 798 cases comprising of 519 truck accidents, 19 fallen containers, 221 broken down trucks, 11 others, and 47 fallen truck/tankers.”
Oke-Osanyitolu disclosed further that the fire disaster category ranked third with 213 recorded cases comprising 192 fire incidents, six tanker/truck fires and 15 vehicular fires (cars/BRT buses).
He also stated that the building collapse category recorded 43 cases, comprising 19 collapsed buildings, two impending collapses, 17 partial collapses and five others.
On the explosion category, he noted that the agency recorded nine cases comprising one pipeline, and eight gas explosions, while the spillage/leakage category recorded 10 cases comprising six gas tanker leakages, one diesel tanker leakage and three pipeline/oil leakages.
“The Medical Category recorded 200 cases comprising of two suicides, two attempted suicides, two dead bodies, one missing child and 193 others.
“The marine category recorded six cases comprising one flooding and five capsised boat cases. Air crash recorded one case, while the train accident category recorded two cases.
“Other events category recorded a total of 117 incidents comprising 105 events, two powerline cases, two bridge repairs, one borehole accident, two demolitions and one assault,” the statement added.
Providing data analysis on the cases attended to across the local councils in the state during the months under review., the permanent secretary stated that the densely populated Alimosho LGA, with the largest landmass, ranked first with 319 incidents out of the 1,906 cases successfully attended to by the agency by March 31, 2024.
He also disclosed that Ikeja LGA ranked second with 233 incidents, followed by Kosofe LGA which recorded 180 cases, then Oshodi/Isolo LGA with 153 cases, while Surulere LGA followed closely with 149 cases and Mushin LGA with 129 cases attended by the agency by the end of March 2024.
According to the statement, “Eti-Osa LGA recorded 104 incidents, followed by Apapa LGA with 101 incidents, Lagos Island LGA with 85 incidents, Ikorodu LGA with 84 incidents, Somolu LGA with 65 incidents, Ibeju-Lekki LGA with 63 incidents and Lagos Mainland LGA with 49 incidents.”
“Data further reveals that LASEMA successfully attended 43 incidents in Agege and Epe LGs, 30 incidents in Amuwo-Odofin LGA, 24 incidents in Ifako-Ijaiye, 22 incidents in Ajeromi Ifelodun, 17 in Ojo LGA, 13 outside Lagos, while Badagry Local Government Area did not suffer any emergency occurrence during the duration under review,” he added.
Quadri Olaitan is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, public affairs, and human-interest stories.
