A total of 18 passengers on night journey lost their lives at Fire Academy, Sheda, on Abuja-Lokoja road, at about 1.35 a.m on Wednesday, when the vehicles they were travelling in had a head-on collision.
The crash involved a Marcopolo luxury bus with registration number XG413FGG, belonging to GUO Group of Companies and a J5 bus with registration number XA726NSR, all with 96 passengers.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that the J5 bus was heading to Sokoto from Lokoja, while the luxury bus was on its way to Lagos from Kano when the incident happened.
It was gathered that the J5 bus swerved off the lane to the other lane and had a collision with the luxury bus.
The casualties, it was gathered, were passengers travelling with the J5 bus, as 17 occupants of the bus were confirmed dead while an additional person died at a hospital.
Nine other passengers of the J5 bus were said to have sustained various degrees of injuries.
About N217,000 were recovered from the bus by officials of the Federalย Road Safety Corps (FRSC) which, they said, would be handed over to the relations of the victims.
According to details of the crash obtained by the Nigerian Tribune, 96 passengers were involved, while all dead victims were male adults.
The corpses were deposited at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital mortuary and Kwali General Hospital mortuary.
Confirming the crash, the Corps Commander, Corps Public Education Officer of the FRSC, Jonas Agwu, urged members of the public, especially those whose relations travelled through the Kano-Lagos and Lokoja-Sokoto routes, to check the Kwali General Hospital and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, for identification and collection of the corpses.
He stated that the injured victims were also taken to the Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital for further medical attention.
