JUST IN: Angry Mob Attack Traffic Agency Officials, Set Bus Ablaze

AMILOADED MEDIA HUB NEWS UPDATE

Over 5 officials of the Traffic and Indiscipline Management Agency of Abia State, TIMAAS, were yesterday, attacked by an angry mob at Brass junction, along Aba-Owerri road, Aba.

Trouble started for the TIMAAS officials when a car they were chasing, knocked down a pedestrian as the driver was trying to escape from the traffic agency operatives.

According to Vanguard report, the pedestrian sustained severe injuries which angered some passersby. Instead of attending to the injured pedestrian, the TIMAAS officials were said to have gone to arrest the traffic offender. In the confusion, some keke operators used their tricycles to barricade the road and assaulted the TIMAAS officials and burnt their operational bus.

“The TIMAAS officials were pursuing a driver who drove against traffic, but the driver of the car knocked down a pedestrian while trying to escape from the TIMAAS people. Some keke operators who saw what happened , that the TIMASS officials never cared to check on the injured pedestrian, use their tricycle to barricade the road and beat them and set their bus on fire,” the eyewitnesses said.

However, General Manger of TIMAAS, Mr. Bright Chinedu Ikeokwu, said the agency is not deterred by the actions of some elements that have continued to attack its personnel on official state assignment.

He explained that changing an entrenched traffic culture in Aba is not an easy job, stressing that motorists in the city are always impatient.

Ikeokwu disclosed that the adoption of the newly introduced Digital traffic lights in the city by the state government has become a challenge to motorists in the city who find it difficult to confirm.

He, however, commended the state government for the innovation, stressing that TIMAAS will continue to work until motorists begin to obey the traffic laws.