3 arrested over Maryland riot
Elechi Amadi dies at 82
Three suspected hoodlums were yesterday arrested after the riot at the Maryland area of Lagos in which some Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) buses were destroyed.
The Lagos State Government disclosed this in a statement after the disturbance following the killing of a hawker who was allegedly knocked down by a bus.
The state government in the statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, said the street hawker, who was trying to evade arrest from officials of Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI), had attempted to cross the road before being hit by the truck, which was erroneously thought to be a BRT bus.
Following the incident, hoodlums armed with sticks and stones, were reported to have immediately descended on some BRT buses plying the route as at the time of the incident and in the process, destroyed several of the BRT buses.
“It wasn’t any of our buses that killed him (hawker), it was a soft drink company truck that unfortunately crushed the boy while he was trying to escape from KAI officers who were on patrol trying to rid the street of street hawkers and traders,” the commissioner said in the Foremost Nigerian novelist and civil war veteran Elechi Amadi died Wednesday evening in Port Harcout at the age of 82.
According to a family member Bar Wabueze, Amadi died at the Good Heart Hospital in Port Harcourt Rivers State at about 3: 45 pm but details of the exact cause of death have not yet been made known.
Amadi was a captain in the Nigerian Army during the civil war between 1967 and 1970 and has written numerous books statement.
He said hoodlums took advantage of the situation to start destroying government assets, including several of the brand new BRT buses.
According to him, it took the intervention of a team from the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) to quell the riotous scene caused by the hoodlums before the corpse of the boy was taken to the morgue at the General Hospital, Ikeja. including novels, essays and plays, which have earned him a spot among African literary greats.
Some of his most famous include The Concubine,(1966) The Great Pond (1969), Sunset in Biafra (1973) among others. The author continued to write into his old age, releasing a play during his 80th birthday in Port Harcourt and a science fiction novel in 2013. In 2009, the novelist was abducted from his home in Aluu town, Port Harcourt and was released a day later.
In 2003, Amadi was awarded the Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR).