Speeding vehicle knocks down fleeing suspected thief in Lagos

A yet-to-be-identified male adult suspected to be a thief was on Sunday found lying unconscious after being knocked down by a hit-and-run driver in the Abule Egba area of Lagos State.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the incident happened on Friday morning.

Our correspondent gathered that the suspect had broken into an apartment in the community in the early hours of Friday when some residents saw him.

To avoid being apprehended, he was said to have taken to his heels while some residents chased him.

While fleeing the community, he suddenly ran into the expressway and got hit by a speeding vehicle in the process.

Our correspondent during a visit to the community on Sunday saw the suspect with swollen eyes and bruised body still lying on the roadside just by the edge of the Abule Egba bridge.

A trader, Ganiyat Enitan, who owns a shop close to the bridge, told PUNCH Metro that the accident victim had been on the spot since the incident happened.

He said, “We met him there on Friday morning and he has been there since then. We were told that he was caught scaling a fence at midnight and those who saw him decided to chase him. He was trying to run across to the other side when he ran into a vehicle that knocked him down.”

During a closer look, our correspondent discovered that he was still breathing as his legs moved at intervals.

Another business owner who identified himself simply as Sesan said he was initially lying on the bridge walkway before he rolled into the main road.”

“We saw him this morning on the main road. It was later that some LASTMA officials came to put a tyre behind him as a caution to prevent vehicles from climbing him.”

Meanwhile, a transport worker, Saheed Adekunle, has urged the state government to evacuate him from the spot before he gets run over by a vehicle.

He said, “We want the state government to come and remove him from here. If he spends longer time on the road where he is now, I am sure he will be crushed by a vehicle. The tyre LASTMA put there is not enough to stop that. Those trucks you see drive roughly and often climb the walkway. So, how much more on the road where is lying.”

All the calls made on Sunday to the spokesperson for the Lagos State Emergency Management Authority, Nosa Okunbor, were not responded to while a text message sent to him had yet to be replied to when this report was filed.