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Parents Urge Colleagues To Fight For Electrocuted Unilag Student

By Samson Ezea
12 September 2015   |   3:16 am
WERE it not for divine intervention, Chief Basil Anikwe and his family of 133, Samuel Ekunola Street, off Ago Palace Way Okota, Isolo Lagos would have lost two of her daughters namely; Oluchi and Obianuju in the ill-fated electrocution saga at the University of Lagos campus on Tuesday.
Oluchi

Oluchi

“Oluchi, Where Are You? Your Course Mates Are Here, Where Are You?”

WERE it not for divine intervention, Chief Basil Anikwe and his family of 133, Samuel Ekunola Street, off Ago Palace Way Okota, Isolo Lagos would have lost two of her daughters namely; Oluchi and Obianuju in the ill-fated electrocution saga at the University of Lagos campus on Tuesday.

But while Uju, a medical student of the university survived the ugly incident with minor injuries, her elder sister, Oluchi, a 300-level first class student of the Accountancy Department of the university was not all that lucky as she gave up the ghost. This was after she was allegedly unattended to quickly when she was rushed to the school’s medical centre.

When The Guardian visited the family house in Lagos yesterday, the atmosphere was palpably sad. Sympathisers, relations and friends were seen trooping in and out of the two-storey building to commiserate with them.

Speaking in an emotion-laden voice, Uju said she was together with Oluchi on their way to her hostel when the high-tension wire snapped and fell on both of them.

Her words: “I came from the medical school at Idi Araba to see my sister on that ill-fated Tuesday. She came out from the church where she had gone for evening mass. We were together walking to her hostel when the high-tension cable cut and fell on us. We fell down separately.

“When I managed to stand up, I saw my sister on the other side staring at me. I screamed and appealed to passersby to assist. Initially, they were reluctant to come to our rescue.

“But one guy summoned courage and rushed to my sister and pulled her up. She was taken to the school’s medical centre where the medical personnel on duty, instead of attending to her urgently, started asking for her identity card. At that point her eyes were open. It was only her left hand that was stiff.”

Parents of the deceased, Mr. Basil Anekwe and her wife, Augustina, were sitting in the parlour weeping profusely. They were surrounded and consoled by family friends, and relatives.

According to Mrs Anekwe, the demise of Oluchi who left home on Sunday back to school, came to them as shock.

“We could not believe it initially because she was never ill, neither did we have any premonition of her untimely demise. My brother, you can see what Unilag has done to me,” she bemoaned.

Also yesterday, students of the Accounting Department of the university, some of their lecturers and student union leaders, paid condolence visit to the Anekwe family around 12.05pm.

Speaking on behalf of the delegation, a lecturer in the department, Mr. Damilola Fagboro described Oluchi’s untimely demise as a colossal loss to the institution, the academic community and the human race.

Fagboro said: “Oluchi was a genius. She had a date with history considering her outstanding academic performance which placed her at first class. You know what it means being a first class student at Unilag. No amount of words can describe the stuff Oluchi was made of.”

In his remarks, Mr. John Ike who is Oluchi’s maternal uncle thanked the delegation, and expressed the family’s sadness on how the school’s medical centre handled late Oluchi’s case when she was rushed there alive.

“If not negligence, how can the medical personnel at the centre be asking for identity card of a patient in dire need of urgent medical attention? Well, we have handed everything over to God because he knows why,” Ike said.

While addressing the delegation, Oluchi’s father, Mr Anikwe began by repeatedly and emotionally calling Oluchi, asking: “Oluchi, where are you? Your course mates are here, where are you? Ohh, they are looking for you.”

The remarks drew tears from her course mates, siblings, and sympathisers who consoled the man by holding him. Mr. Anikwe urged the students to fight for Oluchi, stressing that nobody knows who is next.

6 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    Some doctors are good. Many doctors, in those countries like Nigeria, think that life has no value. One of my friends told me that as he visited his friend, a doctor, at LUTH, Lagos, there was a dying patient in front of him. The doctor was making fun of the dying man, saying, joyfully, why it was taking him a long time to give up the ghost.

    Another friend from Ghana told me that a doctor told a man needing an emergency treatment, “Do you know how many dead bodies I have seen in my life?” A white doctor will never say that, because he knows the laws and ethics of the profession. A white doctor can pay heavily even for his surgical mistakes, whether the patient dies or survives. This is a known fact.

    Why are we called a third world country? Hey, let’s face the reality. Nigeria is a very rich country. But, most Nigerians live like the beasts in the forest! Cry, the beloved country. The dead are not only those who are dead and intered; there are also many living dead, walking ghosts, shadows of hunger, pains, hopelessness and penury. Cry, our beloved country.

    In a country where there is no rule of law, doctors are telling emergency patients, “Go and die, if you have no identity card and money to pay!”

    Somebody should identify those doctors and hit them very hard, if laws can’t hit them to learn a lesson. Whoever hits them hard will be glorified because the curse is very ripe.

    A Russian father who lost his daughter in a plane crash did so. He went to Switzerland and hit that man at the control tower very hard, because it was his negligence of duty that caused two planes to collide in the air. The Russian man was glorified in Russia. Today, he is even a minister in Russia. Hitting somebody very hard gave him a very good popularity in his country.

    In Nigeria, somebody should identify and hit a heartless doctor very hard. Do you know what I mean by hitting somebody hard? Shotly after Bob Marley was fired at, with volley of bullets, he went to the stadium and sang a song, with the title, “Hit Me With Music.” He just wanted to be shot while singing! Oh my God, those doctors should be hit very hard.

    • Author’s gravatar

      Perhaps you should come and do it for us Mr.

      • Author’s gravatar

        This is the real problem. With people like you, Nigeria will be the same rotten country. Don’t wait for somebody to act for you. This brilliant girl has paid a price, accidentally, for some people’s negligence. If the girl were your own child you would have understood with me. Of course, what I suggested happened somewhere in Nigeria. It happened in Illeh, a village in Ekpoma, Edo State. A crazy guy, a stranger, murdered a woman in cold blood. A jungle justice followed. The guy was hit very hard. That was very reasonable. It is not reminiscent of burning a harmless armed robber to death. That is a different thing. But if an armed robber hit your mother hard, what would you do, if you have a gun, and the robber is within your reach? Won’t you hit him hard? And after his death, won’t you cut off his limbs, although the limbs can do nothing, when the head is off? In many ways, we are heroes. Take it, man.

        White people call black people foolish and animalistic.

        • Author’s gravatar

          Those medical staff will receive their punishment on earth.

          • Author’s gravatar

            Thank you for your contribution. Just look at the face of the late girl. She looks like everybody’s sister.
            Her life was cut off because of some people’s wickedness and selfishness. Cry, our beloved country.

    • Author’s gravatar

      Painful as Oluchi’s death is, it shouldnt be an excuse for the display of crass ignorance and stupidity by commentators. Who have an axe to grind or have preconceived notions about the medical profession. Anyone who has entered any health facility before knows that the doctor is never at the reception and has never been the one to recieve, register or ask for a patients identity. If @Iron edeko has ever been to any hospital and has any modicum of common sense he would know that the doctor on duty couldnt have been the one asking for the identity card of a student in the school clinic. Your sudden jump to conclusion based on various things other people have told you in the past and not related to the instant case or your personal experience betrays lack of enlightenment on your part. Advocating jungle justice for a set of professionals further betrays how terrible backward and intellectually deficient you are. If those white doctors you are talking about are beaten up for every patient that dies on their hands, how many of them will remain in the profession. And before laying blame on even any of the health staff, what is the instruction issued to them by school management concerning students coming for treatment? Is there a standard protocol for management of emergencies in that hospital? Think well before you pick your pen please.