Ajoku, a Lagos-based woman, says Chidinma Ajoku, her 27-year-old daughter, was planning for her master’s degree abroad before she was crushed to death by a container-laden truck.
The deceased and Chima Nnaekpe, her colleague, died on Sunday on their way home from work following the accident.
Both were staff of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), where they worked in the commercial department, Hajj and Cargo Terminal, until their demise.
In an emotional-laden video — which has now gone viral — the woman narrated how her daughter’s demise had left her unsettled.
She recalled staying awake all night the day the sad incident occurred waiting patiently to hear from her aunt whom her daughter was staying with at Surulere that she had returned from work.
Ajoku noted that it was a colleague who informed them that she was involved in an accident before they would later discover her dead body at the morgue at a general hospital in Yaba.
“I waited and waited the whole night up till 2am in the night for my daughter to come back from work. I was calling her aunt who she was staying with in Surulere. Both of us did not sleep till around 6am when a colleague called and told me that she was involved in an accident and that they were at Isolo General Hospital,” she said.
“When we got to Isolo General Hospital, they were not among those people that were brought in there. They referred us to a general hospital in Yaba and we went there and they told us to check the morgue because they did not bring any living person there. My husband’s friends and son checked the morgue and saw my daughter and her colleague.
“I will like to tell the public that this is getting too much. These containers keep on killing people and nobody talks. My daughter was 27-year-old working with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. She went to Babcock University and was planning to go abroad to do her masters. And this is just how life has been snuffed out of her.”
She called on Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the state governor, to find a lasting solution to the menace of truck drivers in Lagos.
She also appealed to relevant authorities to investigate the matter and ensure those behind her daughter’s death are brought to book.
“I want to use this medium to appeal to the authorities to bring these people to book. They will not just keep quiet and stop the life of a promising young girl like that and a promising young man like that. Let the government do something because it is getting too much, especially in this Lagos,” she added.
“If my daughter’s life is going to be used to stop this menace, then, let it be what I have achieved. I know that maybe they will say I am a nobody until somebody’s child is snuffed out before they do something.
“But I think everybody in this Lagos whether you own a car or enter public transport, all of us, our lives are in danger because we encounter all these trailers and containers every day and they are very reckless. Please, let something be done.”
The tragedy comes at about the same time when Gbadebo Richard, a student of the University of Ibadan (UI), died after slipping into a soap-making machine at a factory owned by Henkel Nigeria Limited, manufacturers of WAW detergent and bar soap.
FAAN is, however, yet to officially react to the incident as of the time this report was filed.
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