A 32-year-old bus conductor, Benjamin Joseph, was on Tuesday morning sentenced to three months in a correctional facility for assaulting a police officer.
The defendant was jailed by Magistrate Shawomi Bokkos of the Jos Magistrates’ Court, Plateau State.
Bokkos summarily tried and sentenced Joseph after he pleaded guilty to the charge, saying that his sentence, which is without an option of fine, would serve as a deterrent to other would-be offenders in the future.
Earlier, the Prosecution Counsel, Insp Ibrahim Gokwat, had told the court that the case was reported on June 9 at the “C” Division Police Station by the officer in charge of traffic.
The prosecutor said the convict allegedly assaulted a police officer on duty who had tried to stop him from causing traffic obstruction with his vehicle.
The offence, according to him, is punishable under the Plateau State Penal Code Law.
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Meanwhile, a pick-up truck with two occupants on Monday plunged into the Ovia River in Edo State after a truck was said to have hit vehicles that slowed down to pass through the dilapidated bridge on the river.
This is coming five days after eleven people lost their lives when their vehicle was hit by a truck on the same bridge.
While an eyewitness said it was a fully loaded Sienna bus that plunged into the river, the Federal Roads Safety Commission said it was a pick-up truck.
The accident was said to have happened a few minutes before the Deputy Governor of the state, Philip Shaibu, arrived at the scene while on an inspection visit as a result of last Thursday’s incident.
He was said to have mobilised funds for local divers to find survivors inside the river and a specialized vehicle that could pull out the vehicle from the river.
When contacted, the FRSC Sector Commander, Paul Okpe, said that rescue efforts were ongoing and being coordinated by his men who were immediately deployed to the scene from the commission’s office at the old Toll Gate and he was waiting for their final report at the end of the day.
He said, “Five vehicles were involved; the truck that hit them and four vehicles who had slowed down to pass through the bridge. The Ovia River is in a valley so vehicles especially trucks coming from both ends are always descending a slope and there are small vehicles slowing down to access the bridge. I have been talking to the Federal Controller of Works and he has said they were going to fix it.”