Burning of BRT buses: Fashola sets up panel to probe incident

By OLUWOLE FAROTIMI 

 

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola  yesterday  constituted a three-man panel of enquiry to look into the July 4, BRT incident in which a soldier died and six buses used for Bus Rapid Transit operations in the state were allegedly burnt by rampaging soldiers.
Inaugurating  the panel, the governor described the July 4 incident as regrettable, especially in view of the loss of life as well as the destruction of property that followed the incident.
Fashola, who made reference to the defunct Nigeria  Airways, which was reputed to be one of the best in the continent and a symbol of Nigerian pride in the early seventies, said the Nigerian Army had been a source of pride to the nation, especially with regard to their peace-keeping missions around the world, but regretted that some members of the force had dragged the reputation of the army into the mud on several occasions.
He said: “Societies and institutions will fail if men and women fail to do nothing. Like the Nigeria Airways, which was the symbol of our pride in 1973, the Nigerian Army was also a symbol of pride to this nation.
“The job of the tribunal is to find out what happened. How the soldier died, what killed him. And what could have been done to avoid the kind of accident that took his life.
“This and many others are the questions that I hope  this tribunal will help unravel and explain to Nigerians.”
Responding, the Chairman of the panel, Justice Ebenezer Adebajo (retd), assured the Lagos State Government and Lagosians that the report of the tribunal would be thorough and unbiased.

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