A water tanker has reportedly crushed two teenagers to death and injured an elderly woman in Minna, Niger State capital.
The said incident occurred in the Dutsen Kura Gwari area of the State on Wednesday.
There had been an acute shortage of portable water in the state, especially in Minna the state capital in the past months leading to a desperate search for water by every household.
The late girls of between 10 and 12 years were said to have joined the long cue waiting for the tanker to discharge water before they met their untimely death.
According to the Vanguard, the tanker was facilitated by a concerned resident of the area to help other residents with water.
Eyewitnesses said that the two girls were crushed when one of the drivers reversed the truck and the girls were directly at the back of the tanker and they died instantly.
Youths in the area went wild with the development as they arrested the drivers for what they described as reckless driving.
The drivers were later discovered to be underaged and not even licenced to drive such tankers and demanded for the owner of the tanker to come down for interrogation.
Though the tanker was painted in the white and blue colours of the state water board, it was later discovered that it is not government property.
It took the intervention of the police to get the boys and the truck out of the community alive.
The Niger State Water and Sewage Corporation (NISWASEC) in a swift reaction distanced itself from the ownership of the tanker saying that the tanker does not belong to the Agency.
The Public Relations Manager of the Agency, Zainab Yunusa who confirmed the incident said that the tanker was just painted in the color of the state government but it does not belong to the Agency.
“It is not our tanker; it is a private tanker which means it belongs to an individual. All our tankers have been down and have not been functioning.
“This tanker was just painted in the color of the state government but it does not belong to us,” the PRO declared.
