Angry youth set ablaze truck that crushed 3 youths to death.

A mob in Okuku a suburb of Ogoja in the northern town of Cross River State, weekend, set ablaze a Champion Breweries truck after it crushed three youths riding on Okada.

An eye witness, Matthew Ekawu, a staff of Yala Local Government Area, told Vanguard that the truck came from Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital laden with over 2,000 crates of the company's products for delivery to a local distributor.

He said the driver had negotiated the bend at the Okuku roundabout and was heading towards the direction of Mary Knoll College when four youths on a motor cycle went speeding towards the direction the truck was coming from on their way to the Graki cattle market at Igoli.

Ekawu said: "The truck had occupied part of the narrow road and on the other side was a stationery car. In the effort to avoid colliding with the car, the motorcycle tried to maneouvre through the little space between the truck and the car but the space was too small and they ended under the rear tyres of the truck and were crushed."

One of the boys was, however, able to jump down from the motorcycle but three others, Ohiho Ogar, John (the rider) and Alice, the girlfriend to Ohiho who was a student of the Cross River State University of Technology were all crushed by the truck.

After the accident, youths operating okada at the Okuku junction chased the truck and caught up with it some yards away and went after the driver who escaped into the bush.

"The driver apparently did not know that some people had died under the back tires of his truck."

When the youths caught up with the truck they went after the driver who ran into the bush and they descended on the drinks

"They turned the place to a party arena and drank the beer till the next morning" Ekawu said.

A source at the Okuku police station said only three policemen were on duty that day and were over whelmed by the crowd which descended on the truck "When we called on the DPO at Okpoma for re-enforcement he said there was no means of transportation so the boys had all night to loot the drinks and set the truck ablaze".

-naij