A sachet water hawker and her baby were on Monday killed on the spot when a truck rammed into them in the Oshodi area of Lagos.
The woman was said to be hawking sachet water, when the truck that was carrying sharp sand, hit her.
An eyewitness, Emeka Njoku, said the truck was moving at a fast speed, adding that by the time the driver tried to apply the brake, he noticed that the brake was no longer working.
Mr Njoku noted that as a consequence, the truck hit the woman and the child, who was strung to her back while she hawked sachet water.
“Some of us, who were selling in the traffic, saw the truck coming at a fast speed. I thought something was wrong with it. And in a jiffy, we heard a sound and people shouting at the same time.
“It was when I ran to the scene that I saw that a woman and a child strung to her back had been knocked down by the same truck that was moving at a fast speed,” he said.
Njoku added that there had been frequent cases of trucks killing hawkers and pedestrians in Oshodi, adding that the authorities were not bothered about the situation.
He noted that the authorities’ concern was only to evacuate the remains of the victims and not to proffer solutions to the frequent cases of people being killed by trucks along the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway.
A passer-by, who identified himself simply as Jide, said he was always fearful for the hawkers, particularly those around Oshodi, adding that they were oblivious to the risk involved in hawking.
