HOW UNILAG GIRL DIED

How UNILAG girl died.....THE NATION
Uju Anekwe, sister of the 300-level Accounting
student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) who
was electrocuted last Tuesday, relived at the
weekend the last moments of her sister, Oluchi.
They were together during the incident in Akoka, the
university campus. Uju is a 200-level student of
Medicine in the university.
Their father, Basil, recalled how he received the
tragic news.
Uju, who was injured in the incident, came down
from the family’s apartment with her friend. She
walked gently, limping on her left leg. She had
bruises below her nose and on her right arm.
She said: “It had been long that I visited her on
Akoka campus, since I moved to the College of
Medicine in Idi-Araba. That Tuesday, I visited her
and she told me to meet her at the University
Chapel, because she was attending a Catholic
mass. I saw her bag full of books. She was
supposed to write ICAN exam next week.
“We left the chapel to New Hall to buy popcorn.
When we got there, the vendor was reparing the
popcorn machine. We told him we would come
back. We stopped nearby the popcorn vendor to buy
3-in-1 bracelets. Then, I told her to let us wait for
the popcorn but she said she was going back to
church for Catholic students’ meeting. It was a few
minutes past 7pm.
“We came out of New Hall gate and standing on the
road. I told her we should go to her room but she
was adamant, saying I should give her one of the
bracelets that we bought a moment earlier. As I
was about opening my bag, I heard a loud bang and
we were thrown apart. All I could remember at that
moment was that I was shouting and screaming for
help.
“I noticed electric sparks of white blue light. It all
happened within microseconds. I initially lost
consciousness. When I regained my consciousness,
I saw people running away from us. I tried to stand
up but I could not, because I was still feeling
electrical shock in my body. As I turned, I saw my
sister (Oluchi) with the electric cable around her
leg.
“I don’t know where I got the energy; I got up and
screamed for help. Nobody came to our rescue.
One man came later and single-handedly pulled
Oluchi away from the cable. Others came and
stopped a taxi and rushed her to the Medical Centre
within the campus. I joined another taxi.
“When we got there, we didn’t receive immediate
attention until 30 minutes after. She could have
stayed alive a little longer if the doctor had
attended to her. The doctor did not even show
sympathy and care. They only offered to give me a
drip but they left my sister unconscious.
“As a medical student, I knew my sister needed
urgent attention, but the people in the clinic
seemed helpless. I told them I would not allow
them to give me the drip until they attended to my
sister. Later, one of the nurses brought two tablets
of Panadol. We stayed for some time before they
brought an ambulance to take my sister to LUTH.”
Uju blamed the school for not providing facilities at
the clinic, saying: “The Medical Centre does not
even have a toilet roll. What does the school provide
for the Medical Centre to cope with emergency?”
Anekwe, a senior employee at the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said: “Oluchi’s life
could have been saved. When they brought out her
body, I checked it and I discovered that the only
stiff part was Oluchi’s left arm where the electric
cable struck her. Every other part was moving
freely. And this shows she was left to die because
the nurses and doctors, who attended to her, did
not know what to do when she was rushed to
school clinic and LUTH.”
On how she learnt about the incident, Anekwe said:
“I got a call from my first son, telling me Oluchi was
seriously sick. I did not believe him, because Oluchi
and her sister came home at the weekend. We all
went to church together and she was lively. She
returned to school on Sunday and I promised to
send N30,000 to her for upkeep.
“On Tuesday evening, I withdrew the money from
ATM, with hope that I would ask somebody to
deliver the money to her on Wednesday before I left
for work. I got the call from Chinedu, who asked me
to come back home, that Oluchi had been admitted.
When I got home, Chinedu took me in his car and
headed for LUTH.
“As we entered the LUTH gate, he did not take me
to hospital but he drove to mortuary area, where I
saw Nkem and my wife’s sisters. I asked what they
were doing there, but none of them replied. It was
then I knew tragedy had hit my household. The
N30,000 I wanted to send to Oluchi was paid at the
mortuary. While this was happening, my wife did not
know what was going on…”
Anekwe criticised UNILAG for not equipping its
health centre with good facilities and competent
medical personnel. He said the late Oluchi was not
attended to for more than 20 minutes after she was
rushed to the clinic.
He said: “I was told the doctors were asking for
Oluchi’s medical card before she could be attended
to. As doctors, are they not to save lives first? If
they had attended to my daughter and told me the
medical bill is N2 million, I would look for the
money and pay it, because her life is more
important than money.
“But, they did not attend to her. No effort was
made to revive her and no medical test was
conducted on Oluchi before she died. When they
wanted to transfer the body to the mortuary, a
doctor wrote on a plain sheet and gave Nkem to
take the body to the LUTH morgue. Nkem rejected
it because the note contained a statement that
indicated that Oluchi was brought in dead. This was
to cover their inaction that led to the death of my
daughter.”
Although the family accused the UNILAG
management of carelessness, Anekwe said there
would not be any legal action against the school
and Eko Electric Distribution Company (EKEDC) –
owners of the cable that fell on the girls. He
wondered why the university did not remove the
cable after weeks of complaints by students living
in the New Hall hostel. He said it was wrong for the
school to allow EKEDC to run cables not meant for
the hostels across the campus.
Anekwe said: “We will not take any legal action
against the school and the power company that
owns the cable. I don’t want any compensation
from them. If UNILAG management approaches me
for compensation, I will ask them to give me my
daughter or go to hell with their money. I don’t want
their money; I want my daughter.
“It would be wrong if UNILAG usually pays
compensation for such carelessness. As a parent, I
will never accept any offer, whether money or
material, from the people who watched my daughter
to die. If they are thinking of compensation, let
UNILAG use the money to equip its clinic and hire
competent medical personnel. The people presently
in their clinic are killers.”