Rejected at 2 hospitals, sad end of lecturer who died day he was to get Ph.D

Completing his Ph.D programme must surely have been a satisfying venture for Abdul Hafeez Adedimeji, being an academic himself, but dying on the day he was supposed to be conferred with honours for his academic achievement was a sad event for his family members.

When Abdul Hafeez Adedimeji, a lecturer at Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State ,started his Ph.D programme at University of Ilorin, he must have been looking forward to the day he would finish up and be proudly decorated with his degree having been found worth of it “in character and learning.”

He must have travelled dozens of times, shuttling between Osogbo and Ilorin as he pursued his academic honours with determination, going to see his supervisor and putting finishing touches to his thesis, especially as the programme began to wind down.

Unfortunately this was not to be as though he actually finished the programme, but was not able to partake in the ceremony of being conferred with honours. He gave up the ghost the very day he was supposed to be conferred with his Ph.D. degree.

News of his death threw the entire staff and management of the Fountain University into mourning and confusion. He was until his demise, the Head of General Studies Department of the institution, as well as the Chief Imam of the institution’s mosque.

Sunday Tribune gathered that before his death on the 22nd of October, Adedimeji, an indigene of Iwo, Osun State, had earlier had a surgery on a tumour, which grew on his thigh. He was said to have developed complications.

According to a source close to his family, “the deceased’s wife and a few others rushed him to Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital (LAUTECH), Osogbo, but he was not admitted at the hospital. He was later taken to another private medical facility, where he was rejected.

“By the time we rushed him to Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Hospital, Jaleyemi, Osogbo, he was pronounced dead by the doctor. It was a terrible experience. There was nothing we could have done to save him,” the source remarked.

Some of his colleagues who spoke to our correspondents described the deceased as a nice and easygoing person who was always willing to help anybody who came his way.

Reacting to the demise of Adedimeji, the management of Fountain University, Osogbo, in a press statement signed by the institution’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Ms Adebisi Fadilat, expressed sadness over the development. The statement said: “the management and staff of Fountain University, Osogbo formally announce the death of Dr. Abdul Hafeez Adeniyi Adedimeji.

“Dr. Abdul Hafeez Adedimeji,  who was due to bag a doctorate degree at the University of Ilorin,  Kwara State, on the 22nd of October, 2016 died the same day at about few hours before the convocation ceremony,  during  a brief illness.

“Dr. Adedimeji obtained his Diploma, B.A and M.A certificates in Arabic Studies and Arabic Rhetoric at the Islamic University, Medina in Saudi Arabia. His doctorate degree was also in Arabic Language with interest in English-Arabic translation from the Department of Arabic Studies, University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.”

“The Islamic scholar was the Head of General Studies at Fountain University, Osogbo,  and the Grand Imam of the school till his death. A one-time lecturer at Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, and a  part-time lecturer at Osun State University.

“He was the Secretary General of the Centre for Arabic Research in Nigeria (NCAR), member of National Association of Teachers of Arabic and Islamic Studies; Member of Bamako-based Union of African Muslim Scholars (U.A.M.S); Member, Jordan-based international Forum for Moderation (I.F.M)”

Sunday Tribune was also at the University of Ilorin where he studied for his Ph.D programme, to speak  to those who worked closely with him at the Department of Arabic Studies, but his supervisor could not be reached.

However, the Dean, Postgraduate School, University of Ilorin, Professor Badmas Yusuf, spoke on the late scholar. According to him: “As Dean of Post Graduate School, I present students, after they have been found worthy from their various departments.

So, I will not have close relationship with them as such. So it’s difficult for me to say much about him. However, from what I gathered, he was a dutiful and Godfearing fellow.

“The death came as a sudden event. And it also came as a lesson for all of us that death is an ultimate end. It has no timetable to know when it’s one’s turn. That’s all I can say. I wish that his soul rest in peace.”
Source: Tribune

‘How my father was killed rescuing Emefiele’s wife’

•Son of late Vigilante hero appeals to Emefiele, Police, Oba of Benin for help By Simon Ebegbulem, Benin City It was a pitiable sight last Wednesday, October 26th, when vigilante members from Emuhun community in Uhunmwode Local Government Area of Edo state who rescued the abducted wife of the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Mrs Margret Emefiele, stormed the Nigeria Union of Journalists’ (NUJ) secretariat in Benin city alongside the family of one of their members, Mr Gabriel Okorare, who lost his life during the rescue operation.

They came lamenting that the corpse of their deceased member had been abandoned at the mortuary by the police while the family members the deceased left behind have also been left to their fate. Late Okorare is an indigene of Delta State but lived in Emuhu community with his eleven children and two wives before his death.

Saturday Vanguard learnt that following an appeal from the police that the vigilante should comb the bush in search of Mrs Emefiele and three others who were abducted with her by the kidnappers, the deceased mobilized his men and during a shootout with the kidnappers, he was shot dead. However, this did not deter his colleagues and some farmers who were said to have helped in locating the place she was kept and in fact assisted in ferrying the ransom to the area the kidnappers demanded the money should be kept.

Recalling the sacrifices their breadwinner made before Mrs Emefiele was rescued, the two wives, the eleven children and other members of the family wept uncontrollably as they felt abandoned. They also expressed disappointment at the Edo state Commissioner of Police, Mr Gwandu Haliru Abubakar, who promised to pay a condolence visit to the family of the deceased but never kept to his promises.

Eldest son of the deceased, Roland Okorare, in his speech said: “we are still in shock because we were at home when we heard that our father was shot dead by the kidnappers when they went to rescue the wife of the CBN governor Mrs Emefiele. We went to Ugoneki police station and the police admitted that they knew about his death, that they actually called members of the vigilante to comb the bush that day in pursuit of the kidnappers of the wife of the CBN Governor.

All our vigilante men went into the bush and as they were exchanging fire with the kidnappers my father was shot. The police took his body to Abudu mortuary. We left there for Okhuai police station and the police said they were contacting the DSS and the Police command on the matter. When they did not give us concrete response, we went to Benin to see the police commissioner who told us that he was also aware of the matter.

But unfortunately, the police have abandoned the corpse at the mortuary, they are not bothered about how he will be buried or the welfare of the family he left behind. We have not also heard from the Emefiele family. “We did not hear from the police and we believe that the police did not even give the report of how one of the vigilante men lost his life.

The kidnappers abducted that woman, took her to Igumoso bush where my father confronted the kidnappers and was shot dead. The police did not know the bush where the woman was kept. Emefiele’s wife was still in the bush when this happened, in fact it was a farmer and one of our men who brought the woman out after the kidnappers ran away and we handed her over to the police at about 2 am.

Emefiele family also promised to come and pay a condolence visit to us and we are still expecting them. My father has eleven children, most of them can no longer go to school now and all the promises from the police have not been fulfilled. I don’t know if it is now a crime to assist people who are in distress” he lamented.

The elders of Emuhun community led by Great Omoruyi, on their part said it would be the height of ingratitude to abandon the family of the deceased. According to him, “it was the police who put a call across to us that we should come and help out immediately they kidnapped the woman and three others.

They told us that the kidnappers ran into the bush and we should help. So we mobilized our vigilante men. The police told us that they were kidnapped at Ugoneki area along the Benin Asaba express road. The late Gabriel Okorare was one of the vigilante members who volunteered to join forces with security operatives. Unfortunately, Okorare, a hero, crime fighter, was shot dead by the kidnappers and his lifeless body was recovered by the police who were equally involved in the same rescue operation.

The police deposited the corpse at Abudu hospital mortuary. It may interest Nigerians to know that the deceased who was the bread winner of his family left behind eleven children, two wives, aged mother and brothers and sisters. Since his death, the feeding and the general welfare of the family have been a major challenge to the community of Emuhun. The situation has forced the children of the deceased out of school.

We are using this medium to appeal to Mr Godwin Emefiele, his wife Margret, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state, our revered father, the Oba of Benin Kingdom, and others to come to our aid to enable the children of the deceased survive this shocking death of their father.

“The report of late Okorare’s death was lodged at Okhuaihe police station while the family has also been interviewed by the Edo state Police Commissioner who promised to convey the matter to the appropriate authority but he had not done son and also failed to pay a condolence visit to the family of the deceased”.

All efforts to reach the Edo state CP for his comments proved abortive while the Police spokesman in the state, Stephen Onwuche, who promised to get back to Saturday Vanguard, failed to pick his calls.
Source:Vanguard

Widowed by Boko Haram, abandoned by the military

Widows of slain officers tell their horrible experiences since they lost their husbands fighting the terror sect
Although the military and indeed the Federal Government have declared victory over Boko Haram in their over six-year battle against the dreaded terror sect, the widows of the heroes of the war are far from being relieved. In fact, it appears their own anguish and nightmares have just begun.

No doubt, the fight against terrorism and insurgency in the country has equally taken a toll on the military with the killings of some of its personnel. Just as the military has been claiming successes on the battlefield, so also reports of casualties suffered by government troops have been filtering out. The war has indeed left many military family members without breadwinners.

The government as part of its responsibilities promised to take care of the families of fallen soldiers.
For many of these families, the promise by government has remained a mere rhetoric, as they continue to complain that neither the Federal Government nor the Nigerian Army has come to their aid to bring up their children. The widows complained that since their breadwinners died in battlefield in Borno State and other parts of the Northeast theatre of war, things have been very difficult and they now worry about the fate of their children who struggle to go to school.

Estimated to be well over 1000, some of the widows lamented the death of their husbands, insisting that they have not even been told anything about the whereabouts of their husbands. They lamented that the promises made to them when their husbands died since 2014 till date have not been kept.
Ene Alidu from Benue State whose husband died on November 15 last year asked the government to fulfill all the promises made in the condolence letter issued to them when their husbands died. “I want them to take care of my three kids as they promised.

They are David  8, Joshua 6, and the new kid who is about a year plus. We were given condolence letters where it was stated that, they would pay his salary until all his benefits are out. They have been paying his salary as promised but they are yet to fulfill other promises”.

Ene said she was pregnant when her husband died and was waiting for her husband to come back and see his baby, before she got the unfortunate news. She lamented that her husband was buried without her consent. “The most annoying thing about my husband’s death is that when he died I did not even see his corpse, and they buried him without my consent”

Another widow, Mrs. Mary Johnson narrated her ordeal trying to collect her husband’s benefits. Her soldier-husband was killed in Monguno, Borno State. “When I went to the military headquarters for his benefits, they told me that I must go to Monguno in Borno State and obtain some papers from the Commander. On getting to Maiduguri, I was warned that I cannot go to Monguno except with military escort. Since then, I have been starving with my children.”

Thirty nine year old Josephine Akakaf whose husband was also killed by Boko Haram is equally left with four children, and has nobody to help. Amid weeping, she said, “I am weeping because of my husband. He died on Saturday, April, 2015. He did not tell me that he would leave me like this.

I know how he worked to make ends meet. I want the government to help me because of my children. I do not want them to be abandoned.  What will happen to their education? I do not want them to abandon their schools”

The case of Mrs. Fatima Abdullahi is different. She is unaware of her husband’s fate; whether he is dead or alive as she has not seen or heard from him since 2014. “I am yet to see his corpse. He was declared missing since 2014 and we have not heard anything about him since then. But two months after he was declared missing, the military authority stopped his salary and drove us away from the barracks.”

Another widow, Sarah said after her husband died, she continued to receive his salary for a year but thereafter the payment stopped.  “My problem is, I have not seen the corpse of my husband. I am not begging for financial aid from the military. I am a university graduate. Give me a job to take care of our children. That is my prayer to the military authorities.”

Monica Victor, 33 was very moody when this reporter was talking to her. “I feel bad. He died in Maiduguri in Dec. 2015 with his oga (boss)”. Asked if the family has been assisted, she said the family has been neglected.

Mrs Chinyere John is 24, and is probably the youngest among them. She said, “Shortly after we got married, he was deployed to Borno and we all prayed before he left. But few weeks later, he stopped calling. That was when I became apprehensive and I asked his friends in the barrack, but nobody told me anything. One of his friends told me after sometime that he had died. The army sent me a letter that he was missing in action and that they can’t declare him dead. I am quite confused.”

But as part of efforts to soothe the pains of the widows, some of them were recently gathered to be given cash and clothing items provided by the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA) 81 Division Chapter. Mrs. Amelia  Edet, wife of the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 81 Division and the President of NAOWA in the Division who presented the items to no fewer than 20 widows  said it was part of the activities commemorating the 2016 Nigerian Army Day Celebration (NADCEL.)

She commiserated with the widows on the loss of their breadwinners urging them to engage themselves meaningfully to ensure that they keep the family together. She said that efforts were on to ensure skill acquisition training for wives of soldiers, killed in battlefield, who reside around Lagos and the 81 Division Headquarter.

Apart from taking them through entrepreneurial training, the NAOWA is also preparing to provide seed funds for them to start their own business and be able to take care of their families.
She allayed fears by the widows that they would be ejected from the barracks especially as their breadwinners had died, explaining that the Army takes care of its own.

“I rarely see cases where the soldier dies and the widow and the family he left behind are chased out of the barrack. Some of them have been here for a long time and since I have become President of NAOWA in this Division none of such has happened.”
Source:The Sun

FED GOVT BEGS FOREIGN AIRLINES NOT TO LEAVE NIGERIA

The Federal Government has appealed to foreign airlines operating in Nigeria, which are in the process of downgrading or suspending their operations in the country, to reconsider their decisions.

The foreign carriers had on several occasions decried their inability to repatriate earnings to their home countries as a result of the monetary policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Government.

This has made some of them to scale down their flight frequencies to Nigeria, while a few others have totally halted their operations in the country.

 
But the Federal Government explained that the challenges currently besetting the aviation industry and other sectors of the economy would soon become a thing of the past.

 
The Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, made the appeal when he received the West African Regional Manager for Emirates Airlines, Manoj Gopi Nair, in his office in Abuja on Wednesday.

 
Sirika told his guests that the government was not unaware of the issues that had created operational difficulties for both domestic and foreign airlines, such as unavailability of foreign exchange, aviation fuel shortage and infrastructural deficiency.

 
He said the government had been up and doing to ensure the creation of an environment that was both enabling and profitable for the airlines to operate.

 
The minister, according to a statement from the Aviation ministry, recalled the recent concession given to airlines by the CBN to enable the carriers to procure the required forex to clear the backlog of matured obligations.
Source:Punch

‘Banker hires assassins to kill her ex-husband in Lagos’

The state Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu paraded the suspects at the command’s headquarters in Abeokuta on Wednesday.

He said the banker, Oluchi Tochukwu, hired the suspected criminals to assassinate her husband in his residence at Ayobo area of Lagos State.
Iliyasu named the two suspected assassins as Chigozie Smart (32) and Kingsley Ikechukwu (36).

He said they were intercepted and arrested on Oct. 19 at Ijebu-Ode while attempting to escape to Onitsha with the victim’s Range Rover Jeep.
He said Oluchi was arrested at Ayobo area of Lagos State.

He said, “One Oluchi, a 32-year-old banker, who is married to one Tochukwu Onyebuchi years ago, got separated from her husband following some matrimonial problems.

“The custody of their only child is currently being contested in the court but Oluchi has another plan.
“She connived with the trio of Chigozie Smart, Kingsley Ikechukwy and one other who is now at large to eliminate her husband.

“She arranged for the weapons which includes cutlass, iron rods and acid which she kept in her husband’s compound at Ayobo area of Lagos State and described where she kept it to the assailants.

“The suspects went there on Wednesday as planned and matcheted the man severally on his head and poured the acid on him.

“The suspects thereafter abandoned the victim and took away his range Rover Jeep which Oluchi instructed them to drop at her brother’s place in Onitsha, Anambra State.

“Luck ran against them when a patrol team of the Ogun State command on Wednesday sighted the vehicle along the Ijebu-Ode/Benin expressway and stopped it for search.

“While searching the vehicle, blood stain was seen and the two occupants were unable to give satisfactory account of the blood stain, hence, they were arrested.
“It was during interrogation that the suspects revealed all that transpired to the police.”

The commissioner said that the victim, who had been treated at an undisclosed hospital, was in the custody of the police helping them in the process of investigation.
Oluchi, however, denied contracting the duo of Chigozie and Kingsley and one other at large to assassinate her husband.

Oluchi, who acknowledged that her three-year-old marriage to her husband had crashed, told journalists that she had no reason to kill him.

Meanwhile, Chigozie told newsmen that it was Oluchi who hired them to kill her husband with a promise to purchase “Tokunbo” cars for each of them after a successful operation.
NAN

Culled from Punch

Finally, Tunde Alabi’s leg amputated, with no home to go to

The ailing veteran Nollywood actor of Village Headmaster fame, Tunde Alabi, who has been laying critically ill, over complications from diabetes at the Lagos General Hospital has had one of his legs amputated. The surgery to save the Thespian from further complication by amputating one of his leg took place today, Monday, October 24, 2016.

There were several efforts to checkmate the amputation surgery but all failed as they seemed to have come rather too late. According to the veteran actor’s colleague, Paul Julius, who is the person solely taking care of him, the actor has no home to go back to after the surgery.

“ As I speak with you, the amputated leg has just been taken to the mortuary. But that is not our major concern right now but where he will return to as his home. Right now, he has no family, no friend that can take him in. He is homeless,” he said.

“ Our effort to reach the governor of Lagos State, his home tate, has only proven partially successful as nothing definitive has come off it. The governor knows Uncle Tunde and will be willing to help but bottlenecks of bureaucracy has not helped matters” he added.

Tunde Alabi has been on the acting scene since the glorious days of television drama in Nigeria and he’s today one of the last of that octopus called The Village Headmaster, a television drama that was the in-thing in its days on National Television. His role in the now rested soap opera ‘PALACE’ produced by Ralph Nwadike was one that viewers will not forget in haste.

This thorough-breed professional of the old order who is equally at home with the youngsters of today, impacting knowledge and valuable experience into them whenever he has the opportunity is in dire need of help.

Paul Julius’ call for help and his assessment of the situation:”So sad! Our Veteran Actor’s foot finally AMPUTATED…..I’ve laboured through thick and thin to save the life of Uncle Tunde….assisted vigorously by the indefatigable Chairman of Actors Guild of Nigeria, Lagos State Chapter, Mr. DON PEDRO AGANBI and through the contributions of a few spirited colleagues and fans, we were only able to manage to keep him alive but not with his full body as our once vibrant UNCLE TUNDE ALABI loses his right foot today at General Hospital, Lagos to Diabetes Mellitus.

Now he’s faced with another battle for survival….. Expensive drugs required to heal the amputated leg……no home to return, no money to afford one as his ailment has suck up his entire finances.

We have done our best… …What would you rather do to assist him….just put something in his account no matter how small and the Lord will reward you abundantly. Thank you” he pleaded. Name: TUNDE OBAFEMI ALABI Account number: 0005647181 UNITY BANK PLC.‎
Source:Vanguard