Posted by From Chuks Okocha in Port Harcourt on
The pains of the Ilabors, who lost three children in the ill- fated Sosoliso airplane that crashed on Saturday may not be over yet, as controversy currently sourrounds the identity of one of their late daughters.
The pains of the Ilabors, who lost three children in the ill- fated Sosoliso airplane that crashed on Saturday may not be over yet, as controversy currently sourrounds the identity of one of their late daughters.
Another parent who also lost adaughter, is also laying claim to a corpse, identified by the Ilabors as their daughter's
Rivers State Government has ordered a DNA test, to which the Ilabors and the other parent have agreed to help determine the real parent of the girl in question.
According to Dr Ilabor, father of the three kids, ' the body of the first girl is still a subject of controversy between my family and the family of a friend who also lost a daughter in the crash.
'We have agreed to use DNA test to ascertain which family owns the body. But I have resolved to do a ceremonial burial for her. I cannot wait for up to two weeks which the test would take to be out. I want to end this whole sad story as soon as possible."
Illabor, Medical Director, Summit Clinic, said 'there is no proper identification, as child of other people are being taken away."
An aggrieved parent, Mr Dennis Nkereuwren, in a brief interview described Nigeria as a sick country by encouraging certain irregularities in the system.
' Nigeria is a sick nation, why are they allowing tokunbo aircraft to be used in this country? he asked.
He said it was the place of the Federal Government to bury everybody involved in the crash saying, 'right now, we cannot identify anybody"
Nkereuwen, a retired General Manager of Mobil, in Eket, Akwa-Ibom State, argued that ' if government takes over the responsibility of burying the victims, parents or relations will know that government has done proper burial."
Mr Adebolu Olufemi, father of late Master Olubasaya Adebolu who is about 14-years-old described the incidence as a tragedy of the great proportion blaming the disaster on the Federal Government.
'Government is responsible for all these air disaster, because there is a regulatory agency statutorily empowered to carry out all these checks, ' he said, adding that people attached to offices are very incompetent, but government somehow still manages to allow them stick to their jobs
' If government is alive to its responsibilities, this type of accident would not have occurred.
' We have a lot of problem here, it was only part of the leg of my child that was burnt, if there were immediate rescue from the fire fighters, he would have been saved," he said.
One of the sympathizers who visited wife and the family member of the state commissioner for Education, Prof Thompson Okujagu who dies in the crash, said, '
We are in a country where nothing is working".
' We keep on training our children only for them to parish like fouls. The situation does not call for talk".
Most of those who bared their minds on the incident strongly accused the federal government of being responsible for series of air disasters in the Country by encouraging or allowing tukumbo aircrafts into the country.