A Civil Society group under the aegis of Talakawa Parliament has demanded compensation for the families of five young men allegedly crushed to death by the convoy of the Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo.
DAILY POST reports that the incident happened on September 12, 2024 along the Warrake-Auchi road in Owan East Local Government Area, during a campaign for the September 21, 2024 governorship election in the state, when the governor was then the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate.
However, nine months after the incident, the Talakawa Parliament accused Senator Monday Okpebholo, the then Governorship candidate of the party of alleged abandonment of the families.
The spiritual leader of the Parliament, Kola Edokpayi, made the call in a press statement made available to newsmen on Sunday in Benin City.
Edokpayi said the press briefing which was held in conjunction with members of the deceased families called for the payment of compensation to the bereaved families.
The statement is titled, “A gracious and humble appeal to His Excellency to compensate the family of the deceased who were breadwinners of their respective families before their untimely death”.
He gave the names of the deceased as Igbeabo Ayomide Samuel, Tijani Kashetu Yakubu, Okoruwa Paul Akhere, Ogboe Charity Osagie and Emmanuel Edionwe who was the driver of the Toyota Camry Car during the incident.
He said the victims who were breadwinners of their respective families were travelling to a burial ceremony in Auchi, Edo State when they met their untimely death in a fatal road accident that involved the campaign convoy of the governor.
He said one of the victims left behind a wife and child.
Edokpayi added that immediately after the tragic accident, the corpses were deposited at the Edo State University mortuary, Uzairue in Etsako West Local Government Area by some Officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps, including some eye witnesses.
He noted that the press briefing became necessary following the alleged failure of the state government to honour the letter sent to it since February 2025 on the need to meet with the members of the victims’ families.
According to him, the victims were allegedly abandoned for the family members to pay the mortuary bills and other bills to pave the way for the dead to be properly buried according to their respective tradition.
“For record purposes, the matter of the accident was reported at the Afuze Police Division.
“After a month of the untimely death of the young men, some representatives of the APC allegedly met with the deceased families and they promised to come back with the Governor to pay a condolence visit.
“Till date, they have not heard anything from the representatives of the Party who promised to brief His Excellency of the accident.
“One of the victims is a married man with a child and others are the bread winners of their respective families.
“We don’t need to consult the Oracle of the Hill to tell us that His Excellency is a man of integrity, dignity and will never allow anybody to suffer.
“When this matter was reported to the Human Rights House in February this year, we immediately transmitted a formal letter to the Governor, the Chief of Staff to the Governor and other top Government functionaries. It is sad that we have not gotten a reply from the authority.
“This prompted us to address the press to draw the attention of the Governor to the plights of the deceased families.
“We want to kindly use this medium to appeal to His Excellency, a Father to the Fatherless to kindly visit the families to assuage their pains, bitterness and to compensate the victims families adequately.
“The passionate and compassionate governor that we know will not discriminate or allow his subjects to be subjected to pains and agony”, he said.
In their separate remarks, some of the family members of the deceased appealed to the Edo State government to compensate the families.
Those who spoke, including Mrs Irene Samuel, Mr Ogboe Gift and Amos Okoruwa, said they would be glad if the state governor heeded their cries of appeal.
Recall that at the time of the accident, the All Progressives Congress, APC, dismissed the reports that it was the convoy of its gubernatorial candidate, Monday Okpebholo that killed the five young men.
However, in a refuttal of the alleged accident, the Director-General of the State’s APC Governorship Campaign Council, Prince Kassim Afegbua, had in a statement said the accident that involved the convoy of the party’s governorship candidate was misrepresented.
Afegbua said a drunken driver rammed into one of the vehicles of the convoy of Okpebholo shortly after the driver overtook one of the vehicles in the convoy.
“First, the APC convoy did not crush five to death. A reckless and seemingly drunken driver rammed into one of the vehicles in our convoy, shortly after that driver overtook one other vehicle.
“He obviously lost control and left to fate, crashed into our vehicle. It was a fatal one, sadly. At the scene of the incident, some officers of the Road Safety who came from nearby confirmed that the driver of that car was reckless.
“They reported that they had tried unsuccessfully, to slow down the vehicle as it was over-speeding, before it crashed.
“It is deceitful, misrepresentative, wrong-headed, spitefully contrived and utterly untrue and a crippling travesty of what occurred”, he added.
