Confusion in Akure as Luxury bus kills 11 cows on Akure-Owo Expressway…Herdsmen flee for fear of lynching

No fewer than 11 cows were killed early yesterday by a luxury bus on Akure-Owo Expressway in Ondo State.

Immediately the news filtered to Akure metropolis, miscreants mobilized themselves and removed the cows before dawn.

They hijacked buses and other vehicles plying the road to convey the dead cows to hidden places where they quartered and shared the meat.

Fight broke out among the miscreants over how many people should share each dead cow and who should take what part of its body.

Eyewitnesses said the bus, marked Anambra KPP 158XA, was heading to Lagos from Abuja when the accident occurred at Sebi Petrol Station in Akure, along the expressway.

The Fulani herdsmen were said to have fled into the bush immediately the crash occurred for fear of being lynched.

It was also learned that the driver and the passengers in the luxury bus fled the scene, afraid that the Fulani herdsmen may mobilize to attack them.

Vanguard gathered that the driver of the bus, on sighting the cows crossing the road, thought it was an armed robbery attack.

He was said to have tried to avoid the cows, but they were too many. He eventually rammed into some of them, killing 11 instantly.

When Vanguard visited the accident scene, miscreants, some with knives and cutlasses, were seen arguing where it would be safer to take the dead cows for quartering.

Journalists, who visited the scene to take photographs of the accident and the activities of the miscreant, were attacked and prevented from carrying out their duties.

A police officer, who was at the scene of the accident, said it was discovered that the Fulani herdsmen caused the accident by making the cows cross the expressway without checking if it was free.

He pointed out that the Fulani herdsmen fled after the crash because they knew they were the cause of the accident.

One of the passengers of the bus, Rosemary Nwachukwu, said the accident occurred at about 4am yesterday, adding that many of the passengers were sleeping at the time.