A man has reportedly slumped and died while fighting over a parking space at a supermarket located on Admiralty Way in the Lekki area of Lagos State.
According to The Punch, the deceased, who was a driver, had gone to the supermarket on Friday, February 24th to purchase items for his employer.
However, a staff member instructed him to park his vehicle properly, which he disregarded and chose to park elsewhere.
An eyewitness, Tunji Gafar, recounted that this disagreement resulted in an altercation between the two parties.
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.”
In addition, Gafar mentioned that the female domestic worker who accompanied the driver alleged that the staff member used an object to strike him.
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 anonymous staff member of the company reported that the employer of the deceased driver arrived at the supermarket a few hours following the occurrence and made threats to apprehend 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.
Subsequently, the supervisor, known only as Bilal, and the staff involved in the incident were apprehended and transported to Maroko Police Station. The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the occurrence.
“Yes, the incident happened. The case has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Yaba,” he said.
