A struggle over a parking spot resulted in a man collapsing and dying at a store on Admiralty Road in the Lekki neighborhood of Lagos State.
The Punch reported that the deceased, a driver, had visited the grocery store on February 24 to get supplies for his employer.
He ignored a service member's advice to properly park his car and instead chose to do so elsewhere. The two parties got into a fight as a result of this argument, according to eyewitness Tunji Gafar.
Gafar said, “The man came to do some shopping for his employer and by the time he was about to park, a staff of the supermarket who coordinates the parking space directed him where to park, but he refused and went ahead to park somewhere else.
“The staff member then approached him to park properly as instructed, but the driver declined. This degenerated into a confrontation as they both engaged in a fight. This drew the attention of one of their supervisors in the supermarket that came to intervene.
“By the time he got to the scene, the driver had already collapsed. When they discovered that the guy did not stand up on time, they started to pour water on him but he did not respond.”
Gafar further reported that the driver's companion, a female domestic worker, claimed that the staff member struck the driver with an object.
He added, “When we rushed to help the man, a female domestic staff that came with him kept saying that the staff used something to hit him. Although the staff insisted that they did not engage in any fight, they only shouted at each other before he slumped.
“We later ordered a taxi and took the driver to a nearby hospital. When we got there, he was referred to another hospital. It was when we got to the second hospital that he was confirmed dead.”
An unnamed employee of the company claimed that shortly after the incident, the boss of the deceased driver showed up at the supermarket and threatened to detain the workers.
“The employer of the driver came here later in the day and by the time he arrived, he started to threaten us with arrest. He said he was a regular customer at the supermarket and that his employee did not deserve to be beaten.
“He also demanded CCTV footage of what happened between them but there was no one to operate it that evening,” the anonymous staff stated.
The manager, identified only as Bilal, and the staff members involved in the incident were subsequently detained and sent to Maroko Police Station. Benjamin Hundeyin, the public relations officer for the Lagos State Police, confirmed the incident.
“Yes, the incident happened. The case has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Yaba,” he said.
