Nollywood actor Kunle Afod and the Ogun State Government are now trading opposing accounts over how quickly help reached victims of a road accident at Saapade, on the busy expressway corridor that links Lagos with Ibadan. The actor complained publicly that emergency responders were nowhere to be found. The state government has fired back, saying its ambulance and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) officials got there 10 minutes after the incident was reported.
What Kunle Afod said
Punch, which carried a video of the actor on Friday, reported that Afod sounded the alarm over what he described as the absence of emergency workers at a crash scene where several people were involved. Punch spelled the location as Shapade and placed it on the Ibadan–Shagamu Expressway in Ogun State.
According to Daily Post, the heart of Afod's complaint was that no emergency response showed up at the scene for roughly 20 minutes. The full wording of what the actor said in the video is not contained in the reports available, so his exact remarks cannot be reproduced here.
Ogun government pushes back
On Saturday, the Ogun State Government rejected the actor's version of events. Both Daily Post and Punch reported that the state said its ambulance, together with FRSC personnel, reached the Saapade scene 10 minutes after the accident was reported, a timeline that directly contradicts Afod's claim of a 20-minute wait.
P.M. News framed the government's response in much sharper terms, running its report under the headline: "You are a liar: Ogun govt knocks actor Kunle Afod". According to that report, the state accused the actor of putting out false information about the emergency response and stood by the performance of its ambulance service.
Neither timeline has been independently confirmed. The available reports do not include the complete text of the government's statement, the name of the official who issued it, or any record showing exactly when the accident was first reported to emergency services. The reports also do not show any reply from Afod to the government's rebuttal.
Friday's crash on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway
The row comes as Ogun State dealt with a serious crash on the same highway on Friday. Thirteen people were hurt when a Mazda bus went out of control, flipped over and rammed into a concrete barrier on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, according to Punch and Daily Post.
Daily Post reported that the crash happened at about 12:30 pm on the side of the expressway heading towards Lagos, within Remo North Local Government Area.
On Saturday, the toll rose. The one passenger who had been in critical condition after the crash died while being treated at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) in Sagamu. Daily Post said the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) confirmed the death in an update issued that day. The victim's name has not been made public in the reports.
