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.
Siblings
“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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