Long faces, broken spirits and an atmosphere filled with
grief welcome you to the home. Tucked in a reserved part
of Okota, a sprawling suburb in the heart of Lagos, the
neighbourhood has perhaps seen more visitors over the last
few days than at any previous time in its history. Since the
tragic demise of Oluchi Anekwe, a 300 level accounting
student of the University of Lagos who was electrocuted on
campus last Tuesday evening, the flow of sympathisers has
swelled by the minute – men, women and even children –
everybody has turned up to commiserate with the household.
It is the most difficult period for the Anekwes, a catholic
family from Aku in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of
Enugu State.
A promising, God-loving and talented young lady, Oluchi
had everything going for her. At barely 22 (she could have
attained that age on December 5); she was on top of her
academic and social life. A high flying student of accounting
with an envious grade in school – first class – her dream of
becoming a renowned investment banker in the future was
gradually taking shape. To further cement her future and
enrich her resume, Oluchi was already preparing to sit for
the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria exams
later this month in her bid to become chartered before
graduating from the university. Such was her love for
excellence. But last Tuesday, all those lofty dreams went
up in flames after tragedy struck. Oluchi would now be
buried on the week she was supposed to sit for the ICAN
test – an ambition she had pursued with unflinching passion
and determination in recent months.
“It still feels like a dream that my daughter is gone,” Chief
Basil Anekwe, her distraught father told our correspondent
on Thursday at the family home. Days of shedding tears
had taken toll on him. His eyes were a bit swollen while
his skin had become unusually pale – a testament to how
heartbroken his daughter’s tragic and sudden demise had left
him.
“She was the star of the family,” he continued. “Always
striving to become the best at her academics. Even as a
first class student, she wasn’t satisfied, she wanted to break
records and was already discussing where she would prefer
to do her Master’s degree. That was who Oluchi was.
“I remember that last Sunday, she called and asked me to
send her some money since her elder sister, Nkem, was
staying with her at her apartment behind the school because
of the distance from Okota to her office. I promised that
she was going to get some money from me by Wednesday
at most. So, on Wednesday morning that I had planned to
go send her the money, I got a call from my eldest son that
Oluchi was very ill and that she was in the hospital.
Suddenly, I saw my driver show up at my apartment in
Ogun State where I work; I was surprised to see him.
Not quite long, my son called and told me that he had sent
the driver to pick me to come to Lagos as a result of
Oluchi’s sickness. At that point, I became restless. The
driver didn’t utter a word to me.
“When I finally got to Lagos, I asked to be taken to the
hospital to see her. I insisted on seeing her at the hospital
because I assumed she was alive. But when we got to
LUTH and the driver was going towards the mortuary,
I began to think that the girl might have died after all. I
insisted on seeing her and they wheeled her out of the
morgue, she was almost laughing. One of my daughters
brought out holy water and rubbed it on her mouth, telling
her to stand up that we were here to take her home. Her
neck was still lose, it wasn’t stiff yet. In fact most parts of
her body were still not stiff after staying there throughout
the night. My wife wasn’t even aware at that point. It was
later that evening that the news was broken to her.
“Her death is a big loss to us,” he said before breaking
down in tears.
Oluchi’s immediate elder sibling, Nkem – a practising
lawyer – gave a vivid account of her last moments before
the sad incident. The 26-year-old told Saturday
PUNCH that the accounting undergraduate could have
survived had staff of the UNILAG medical centre
attended to her immediately she was rushed to the facility.
She said they insisted on seeing her Identity card before
checking her. Nkem also revealed that her sibling had a
premonition of something terrible happening a few days
before the sad incident. She battled to contain her emotions
while pouring out her heart to our correspondent.
“Last Sunday while at one of our prayer meetings in
church, the man of God asked us to rebuke every
monitoring spirit assigned to follow us about. Immediately,
Oluchi got on her knees and started praying seriously,
crying for God to rebuke evil away from her. I had never
seen her pray like that before. It was as if she knew death
was around the corner,” Nkem said.
Maybe the accounting undergraduate truly had an inkling of
the calamity to befall her. In one of her last few posts on
her Facebook page, Oluchi had given an insight into
perhaps what was to come.
She wrote: “Many are born great but die unknown…
everything that makes us human is vain.”
Nkem believes that maybe the aspiring accountant could
have survived had staff at the UNILAG medical centre
attended to her promptly immediately she was rushed into
the facility last Tuesday.
“Oluchi was still alive by the time she was rushed to the
medical centre of the school but the doctors and nurses
refused to attend to her until they saw her identity card and
confirmed that she was a student. They refused to attend to
her and that was how the girl died there. The most
shocking part was that when I got there, Oluchi wasn’t
even placed on a bed; they had wrapped her body and
placed it on the floor. I told the doctor that it was wrong
for them to have done that because sometimes the person
could still be alive at that point. It was an indirect statement
from them that nothing was done to save her life. Even
Uju, our last born who was with Oluchi when the incident
happened, wasn’t attended to even with the injuries she
sustained. It was after I confronted the doctor for not
being sensitive enough that Uju was only given panadol and
one small tablet. This was around 8:00pm. You can imagine
how long she was abandoned from the time the cable fell on
them.
“At the mortuary at LUTH that night, the officials refused
to honour the death certificate issued for Oluchi, insisting
that it was not valid because the doctor did not sign it. He
probably didn’t sign it because he knew he didn’t examine
her at all before pronouncing her dead. The ambulance that
brought us from UNILAG had to take the nurse back to
get the doctor to sign the death certificate while the body
was wheeled to a corner outside the mortuary. It was until
about 11:30pm that her body was finally taken into the
morgue.
“Oluchi was brought to the medical centre alive but she died
because they refused to treat her. It’s a shame that an
ordinary school ID card would be more valuable than the
life of a human, a promising young lady,” she said.
Several days without a sign of Oluchi has left a sour
feeling on the lips of every member of the household.
Oluchi’s mother, Augustina, a business woman, has
remained inconsolable while relatives and close friends of the
family are still grappling with the reality, wondering how
death could have snatched one of their brightest away.
Their grief is such that even the slightest memory of her
leaves them in tears.
“An alarm clock Oluchi set to wake her up for prayers and
studies every midnight rang on Thursday, everybody in the
house woke up and started crying,” Ugo, eldest child of the
family, told Saturday PUNCH.
“It brought back her memory into the hearts of everyone of
us. We cried till morning. To imagine that she would not
be here with us again is really heartbreaking,” she said.
According to Ugo, a bank worker, the fashionable and
very friendly Oluchi was born on a Sunday after their
mother fell into labour during a church service. Given a pet
name for that reason, she grew up becoming everybody’s
favourite in the home especially for her calm approach to
issues that needed her input. Ugo, whose wedding had been
fixed for October 17, wonders what that day would now
look like without the charming and loveable Oluchi in the
picture.
“She told me some months back that she wanted to become
a chartered accountant before she graduated from the
university and was working very hard towards achieving
that dream. We were all very happy for her. The last
time we saw, she told me that the dress she was going to
wear on my wedding in October was ready and that she
couldn’t wait to put it on. But rather than wait to put that
fine dress on, the earth is going to be Oluchi’s cloth now. It
is so painful to lose her at such a time in her life. I am
really in pains,” she said.
The family pains could have been more severe had God not
preserved Uju’s life. The 19-year-old who was with
Oluchi at the time of the tragedy managed to escape with
her life but not without some injuries to the face and hand.
She could barely speak when our correspondent visited the
family on Thursday.
On Wednesday morning, enraged students of UNILAG
blocked major entrances into the school and shut down
academic activities while registering their frustrations at the
incident. Many of them blamed the university’s authorities
for not doing enough to improve facilities on campus
especially at their hostels. It took spirited attempts from top
management officials and an address by the vice chancellor,
Prof. Rahman Bello, who blamed the incident on electric
cables belonging to the Power Holding Company of
Nigeria, for the rampaging students to sheathe their
swords.
A delegation from the institution among them Prof. Tunde
Babawale and Dr. Karo Igbinaka visited the family on
Thursday. They had come to commiserate with the family
and assured them of their total support. Oluchi’s body was
moved to her native Enugu on Friday where she would be
buried next weekend.
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