Posted by By Sunday Aborisade on
The environment is characterised by gloom; the mood of the humans is defined by melancholy and the dull look of the vicinity exemplifies.....
The environment is characterised by gloom; the mood of the humans is defined by melancholy and the dull look of the vicinity exemplifies the rehearsal scene for a dirge. With a pitiable voice undulating between sobs and outright cry, Mr. Moses Olaoye mutters, 'I'm finished. My dreams are shattered. The dreams of my children are shattered."
Olaoye, until the July 18, 2006 Ebute-Meta tragedy, was the chairman of the association of the residents of the ill-fated house 56, Bola Street where he had lived with his small family of five for three years.
Today, as a victim of circumstance, he lives to bear the burden of a bleeding heart resulting from a monumental human and material loss. For over a decade, he had nurtured the ambition of breeding a medical doctor in little Damilola (11 years) of Ijero High School, Apapa. By Olaoye's reckoning, in the next two years, Kehinde (9 years) and his twin sibling, Taiwo, should also be clear in their career paths. 'Damilola and Kehinde were very brilliant students who would have contributed their quota towards bringing my family out of poverty and making the society a better place," he laments.
But a Tuesday night conspired with the spirit of death to snuff life out of Damilola and Kehinde, leaving Taiwo, Esther, who is fourth child of the family, and Olaoye's wife severely injured and traumatised.
Olaoye felt cheated by the spirit of death. Perhaps he was too slow in executing his vacation plan for his children. 'Just last week, I was planning with my wife on how the children could go to Ibadan, my hometown, to spend part of their long vacation," he said in a tone suggesting 'if I had known...".
For him, it is not yet time to pick the pieces of his life and get going. Not now when he says no pieces are left for him to pick. 'I have no property of my own. I lost everything and now I even find it difficult to raise money to settle the hospital bills of my wife and two other children," Olaoye moans.
The fate of the surviving members of his family now hospitalised at the St. Paul's Hospital, Ebute-Meta, is hanging by a hair.
At the Shepherdtoke International School in the neighbourhood, grief envelops the atmosphere. The Ebute-Meta building collapse is one disaster too many that has turned a usually merry end of session to a 'requiem mass".
The end-of-year party for the pupils of the school has been put on hold indefinitely for two reasons.
One, the sponsor of the 2006 party, Mr. Adedayo Adeniyi, was one of the unlucky occupants of collapsed building. Adeniyi, an accountant with the Lagos branch of the Nigerian Red Cross, according to the coordinator of Shepherdtoke International School, was one of the pillars of the school who had contributed immensely to the growth of the school.
Two, Adeniyi's daughter, Meredith, 8, also died in the incident alongside her sibling, Tobi. With Adeniyi, breadwinner of the family gone, his wife, Felicia, is now a refugee at the Makoko Street office of the Red Cross.
For Mudashiru Lawal, an artisan, he needs a redifinition of hope. Two of his children, Ganiyu and Walihulai, had both promised to get him a good car when they came of age. That promise is never to be; they both died in the tragedy.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the victims were taken to St. Paul's Hospital, Bambo Hospital, Ebute-Meta Health Centre, Kuba Hospital, Mount Zion Hospital, Almat Hospital, NRC Health Centre, General Hospital, Ikeja, General Hospital, Lagos, and Gbagada General Hospital for necessary treatments.
A source at the Lagos State Ambulance Services who preferred anonymity, told our correspondent that the victims of the disaster included six children, pregnant women and a newly married couple.