‘How my mechanic died trying to save my wife’s car from Otedola Bridge fire’

Dotun Oladipo, chief executive officer (CEO) of Premium Eagle Media Limited, publishers of Eagle Online, says his automobile mechanic died while trying to save cars from the recent fire outbreak under the Otedola Bridge in Lagos. 

On Tuesday, a tanker laden with inflammable gas keeled over under the bridge. The explosion affected nearby structures, including a church, a residential house, and a mechanic yard.

At least two people died while another six suffered varying degrees of injuries from the ensuing fire outbreak.

One of the deceased was Rotimi Olaleye, an automobile mechanic at one of the repair shops under the bridge. Olaleye was Oladipo’s mechanic, and they had planned to meet at the repair shop before the incident occurred.

The publisher of Eagle Online said he, his wife and daughter escaped the explosion by whiskers.

The journalist recounted how he had arranged to pick up his wife’s car, which was in the mechanic’s care, on the night of the incident.

He said that en route to the mechanic village, the family stopped to purchase drinking water from a supermarket and “took about 10 to 15 minutes doing that”.

Oladipo said people would later describe the brief detour “as my good fortune” because it delayed the family’s arrival at the mechanic village to see “a trailer coming from the CMD road that had apparently lost control”.

“I immediately turned another way from the mechanic village,” Oladipo recounted.

Oladipo added that while everyone escaped, the mechanic told his apprentices that he “needed to save his customers’ cars” amid the raging fire.

“I started dialling the number of the mechanic [I was supposed to pick my wife’s car from]to alert him to abandon the vehicle and run. He never picked up. It was about that time that we heard the explosion. Then his phone never rang again.

“What we found out later from his apprentices was that the mechanic told his boys to run for safety, but he informed them that he needed to save his customers’ cars.”

Otedola Bridge has become an infamous spot for gruesome accidents in recent years.

In 2023, one person died after a wheat-laden truck overturned on the bridge under heavy rain.

In 2021, a 40-foot container fell off a truck on the bridge and crushed one person to death. That same year, at least seven vehicles were burnt in a fire outbreak after a tanker exploded on the bridge.