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It
was that hour of Sunday, generally a work-free day, when many would be
in church praying for God’s favour; and presumably a good time to
travel as traffic was expected to be light. But all those permutations
failed Sunday 15 August in Lagos at the Berger bridge junction on the
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when a speeding trailer (articulated truck) ran
into a convoy of vehicles held up at a police checkpoint, igniting a
fire, which spread panic and claimed scores of precious lives.

The event, on
account of its human-interest value and enormity of the loss, was
front-paged by many of the dailies, four of which we will examine. What
caused the accident, when, where, why and how many died were some of
the traditional queries tackled in the press reports in the effort to
help the reader understand the significance of the event. Although
there was near unanimity on the general details, the variations in
accounts speak of the professional vigilance and sensitivity of the
media houses in addressing the challenges of reporting.

Since none of the
reporters from these four papers witnessed the accident as it occurred,
they relied on accounts of ‘eyewitnesses’ to reconstruct what happened
before their arrival.

The problem with
eyewitnesses in emotionally stressful situations is that their accounts
can be coloured by the stress of the occasion and their prejudices.

From the headlines on Monday 16,

the papers sought
to convey the tragic nature of the event. ‘Bloody day in Lagos’, said
the Punch; ‘Day of Horror: Black Sunday in Lagos’ announced the Nation.
‘20 die in checkpoint tragedy’ asserted NEXT; while the Guardian
grouped it with similar tragedies: ‘48 feared killed, 20 vehicles burnt
in Lagos, Edo road tragedies’. All cast adequate headlines but the
Nation could have showed more racial or ethnic sensitivity to the use
of the adjective ‘black’ in qualifying that Sunday. Ours being a black
race we do not need to employ ‘black’ in any uncomplimentary context.

All were agreed
that the immediate cause of the accident was the trailer that rammed
into a commercial bus at a badly mounted/illegal police checkpoint,
leading to a conflagration, which wasted lives and property. The
Guardian, however, appeared undecided whether it was a trailer or a
petrol tanker. While it said on page 2 it was the former, it cited the
latter on page 14.

When did the accident occur?

“Around noon” (the
Nation); “around 11.27am” (NEXT), about 10am (Guardian). The Punch,
which said one of its correspondents “arrived shortly after the fire
broke out”, omitted the time. The testimony of Fadipe Idowu of the
Lagos State Fire Service in The Guardian that information about the
fire reached his office at 11.19am suggests that 11am would be a
useful, but not conclusive peg.

Where did it occur?
“On a bridge near the Berger area of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway”
(Punch; “between the Mobil Filling Station and Otedola Estate junction”
(Guardian); Shangisha bridge on the outskirts of Lagos (Nation); along
Otedola Estate, Berger Bus stop (NEXT).

On why it happened,
all speculated that the trailer’s brakes failed when suddenly
confronted by an unexpected checkpoint. The underlying anger of the
media against police checkpoint activities found vent in all the
reports. The Nation quoted Gift White, an ‘eyewitness’, who said: “The
policemen were stopping the trailer driver at the checkpoint and he did
not stop. They chased him until the man lost control and hit the
vehicles in its front. We hear they wanted to collect money from him”.

Isaac Ejuvwevwo,
who lost an SUV, also told NEXT that while held up by the checkpoint
traffic: “I just heard vehicles hitting each other behind me, then the
one behind me hit me, then I saw this trailer carrying sugar. The next
I saw fire…immediately I saw the fire, I and the other person in the
vehicle ran out. A little baby burnt in one of the cars, the parents
escaped”.

Expectedly, the Police denied complicity.

Spokesman, Frank
Mba, told the Nation: “there was no policeman at that place before,
during and after the incident. That conclusion is hasty and
unnecessary”, only to be quoted by NEXT as admitting “that there were
some checkpoints along that road but denying, “that his officers might
have caused the accident”.

On the casualties,
the figures are understandably varied. Punch’s Sesan Olufowobi showed
some enterprise in physically counting some of the charred remains to
estimate that at least 40 people died and 25 vehicles burnt.

The narrations also
had some positive sides. Punch talks of a Bolaji Bello who picked up a
13 year old, who broke her leg while fleeing the inferno, and took her
to the hospital. The hospital treated her without demanding a dime. It
will be nice to know what has since become of the girl and it will be
nice to know what will happen to the fleeing policemen, who triggered
off the disaster.

While praying for
the repose of the souls of the dead, the media should appreciate that
although police checkpoints may not disappear in the short term, they
need to be better managed as platforms for security control, and not
extortion centres. True, much evil has happened at checkpoints; some
good too has come from them. I once had a stolen car recovered there.