So HeartBreaking:My husband and I were preparing for our 16th wedding anniversary –Wife of Lagos container accident victim.....SEE PHOTOS

Firstclass newsline :Surrounded by a swarm of women, her eyes flicked
from side to side, dejection, confusion and extreme soberness written
all over her face. The presence of the dozens of visitors trooping in
and out of the modest apartment did only little to heal Zainab's
bleeding wound. It is one of the most difficult periods in the life of
the young mother – one that has pushed her resolve to the limits and
broken her spirits into shreds. There is no word to describe her
pains.
Waking up to a beautiful and promising day on the morning of September
2, 2015, there was no reason to think that danger was lurking around
the corner. Early morning prayers concluded, her husband and best
friend of 16 years, Abubakar Sulaiman, had prepared to head out for
his bureau de change business at the local wing of the Murtala
Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos. Hugging and playing
around with their five children – Sulaiman, 15, Idris, 14,
Abdulrahman, 10, Nana, 7 and two-year-old Hauwa – that morning in his
usual characteristic, the breadwinner of the family soon bid everyone
goodbye, promising to bring home something special later in the
evening. But sadly, the 48-year-old never made it back as promised. A
fully loaded 40ft container that had fallen off the Ojuelegba bridge
in the heart of the city that afternoon and landed on his black Toyota
Sports Utility Vehicle, ended his life and that of two other occupants
– Umaru Sulaiman, 45, and Kamilu Umar, 38, in the cruelest manner. His
death leaves the entire family in shock and in agony.
Abubakar
"I started having a strange feeling from afternoon of that day after
calling his mobile phone several times without a response from him,"
Abubakar's wife, Zainab, told the source in their Agege Lagos home on
Friday. "I became restless; my thoughts were on him all the time," she
continued. "So, I called one of his friends later that evening to find
out if they were together. The friend told me that they were not
together and that he had gone out with another of his friends. By the
time I called that one too he was not picking so I called one of my
brother-in-laws to know if he had heard from my husband.
"Not satisfied, I started calling the number of his driver, Kamilu.
Later a policeman picked the call and asked who I was, I told him and
he said I should tell my husband to call the number and speak with
them. I told him that my husband was with the driver I wanted to speak
with and immediately they cut the call. When I called back they told
me to tell an adult male in the family to call the number so they
could speak. By the time the news was eventually broken to me, I
fainted. I don't know how I survived those moments," she said amid
sobs as the scores of young and middle-aged women around her made
spirited attempts to console her.
Three days without Abubakar has left the once happy home in a shadow
of its old self. Even though a portrait of him smiling brightly hangs
in the family's living room, the manner of his unexpected and painful
death appears to have brought constant darkness into the home. Zainab
told a source that their lives would never remain the same without
their breadwinner.
"He promised to have us celebrate our 16-year wedding anniversary on
October 24," she cuts in solemnly. "We were both looking forward to
that special day. But death has ended that dream. The children cry
every night, asking after their father. Words cannot tell the vacuum
we feel in our hearts. Life can never be the same without him," she
said before burying her face in a small towel. The sight would
certainly melt even the hardest of hearts.
Back at the family house of the Sulaimans in another part of Agege,
the influx of sympathisers – men, women and even children – was almost
endless on Friday when a source visited the place. Even dogs and
goats around the area seem to understand the calamity that had just
befallen the family – they all took strategic positions in the road
leading to the compound, glancing at each visitor with a mournful
look. At the veranda of the compound converged several young and
middle-aged men on mats. They were discussing the latest event and
brainstorming on the way forward. Among them was Usman, the immediate
younger sibling of the late Abubakar. He gave a chilling insight into
what manner of pain the family was passing through and how the tragic
incident had crushed dreams and left a host of challenges on their
doorpost. The situation, he says, leaves them deeply confused.
"I was out of the house for most part of the day and didn't return
home until night that Wednesday," he began. "While I was in bathroom,
calls kept coming on my phones; I thought they were business calls
which I could pick later because I was very tired at that point. But
after praying, I decided to check my phone and later called one of my
relatives who immediately asked if I had heard what happened. The
person said my brother was involved in an accident. By the time we
rushed down to Ojuelegba, another person called us that we shouldn't
go to the Surulere police station where the matter was being handled
but that we should to the Mainland Hospital in Yaba. On getting there,
they took us straight to their mortuary, that was when we actually
knew that they were dead," he said.
Dumbfounded at that point, Usman needed to dig deep within his arsenal
for the strength and courage to relay the news to their aged and
hypertensive mother – Hajia Fatima. It was one year after the family
suffered a similar loss. The last child of the home, Mukthar, had died
in a terrible road accident last year in Katsina State immediately
after securing a job with a telecommunications firm. It was barely two
weeks to his wedding. It was a big blow to the entire household. The
wound had yet to fully heal before tragedy knocked on the family's
door again – this time taking Abubakar, their eldest child.
"There was no way I could relay such message to our mother," Usman
explains, emotions almost betraying him. "We had to keep the news away
from his wife and our mother because the two of them are hypertensive;
such news would break them down. The news was broken to them the next
morning. We had to call our elderly Hausa women to break the news to
them and stay with them. Our mother cried uncontrollably at the news
because Mukthar's death, our last born, is still fresh in our minds.
"The three of them in the vehicle at the time of the accident, were
heading back home from Apapa where they had gone to transact a
business. One of them, Kamilu, used to live here at the family house
before getting an apartment of his own recently. He had four children
while Umar, the third person in the car with them, has eight children.
We are all related," he said.
Sadly, Kamilu's newly born child was christened on Friday – two days
after death claimed his life in the most tragic manner, ending his
dreams and throwing his family into a season of endless mourning. His
wife and children have since been moved to their native Kano following
their burial at the Agege cemetery on Thursday evening. They would
continue their journey without their 38-year-old father and
breadwinner.
Curiously several days after the tragic incident that shook the entire
nation, there has been no word from the police, owners of the
ill-fated truck or the Lagos State Government on whether there would
be compensation for children and wives of the victims. Usman says the
situation leaves them confused by the day.
"Though, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, sent some
representatives to our house on Thursday, we haven't heard anything
from any quarters since then. The victims have families and young
children. How will they survive without their fathers and
breadwinners? We are talking about 17 children without fathers, how
will they cope in the years to come? The problem is too much for the
family alone to handle.
"The police also haven't said much. Though, we saw the tanker driver
at the station but we don't even know if there is a company involved,
nobody has told us anything yet. Before we even got the corpses of our
brothers was tough. In fact it was a big battle at the Mainland
Hospital mortuary where staff were asking us to pay N250, 000 before
the bodies would be released to us despite instructions from the
Governor that they should be released. It took hours of protest from
us before the bodies were eventually released," he said.
The casualty from the latest container tragedy could have been worse
had the heavy metal also pinned a white car inches away from
Abubakar's SUV. By a whisker, the vehicle and its occupant – Lasisi
Akeem – were not touched, reminding us of how much could have gone
down under the massive weight of the 40ft 'monster'.
Painful as the Ojuelegba incident is, it is not the first time
containers carried by trucks would crush lives and end dreams – the
latest is among an ever swelling list of deaths that continue to occur
across the country on daily basis.
On January 23, 2015 for example, a middle-aged woman, Anthonia and her
thrid son, Chibuzor, were crushed to death after an unlatched
container fell on them at the Ketu bus-stop where they were waiting to
board a vehicle to Mile 12. On July 25, 2012, a young lady had been
killed at the Berger end of the Lagos/Ibadan expressway when a
container tipped off the back of a truck and fell on her. Four months
later on November 21, 2012, three persons riding in a Mazda car lost
their lives in similar fashion. The incident happened along the
Badagary/Seme expressway. On June 7, 2013, an unidentified man died
along the Agege Motor Road after a container fell on an Eko meat van.
The victim, said to be a manager with a top mobile phone dealer in the
Ikeja area of the city, was walking to the office when the incident
happened. Two occupants of the meat van later died in the hospital,
according to reports. The driver of the truck was said to have lost
control of the wheel after one of his tyres burst. The list is
endless.
Calls for the outlawing of articulated vehicles carrying containers
within Lagos and other major cities across the country during the day,
have often ended with every major tragedy. Authorities continue to
look away while trucks and their heavy baggage continue to spill blood
and kill dreams.
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