FROM SANCTUARY TO MORTUARY

It was a vigil that Mrs. Onoyomi, her pregnant daughter and grandson went for at the weekend. But quite sadly, just moments after leaving the prayer meeting, the grandmother and her grandson had ended up in the unlikeliest of places – a mortuary.

Like other worshippers that night, they had congregated at the Celestial Church of Christ, Ikeja Parish 1, Olowu Street, Ikeja, Lagos, to pray to God. But on their way home, and just about ten houses away from their church, the three were severely hit by a car. Mrs. Onoyomi and her grandson did not survive the accident.
Some hours after the incident, people still gathered at the scene, bemoaning the tragic occurrence. A bystander among them said that the accident happened about 5.am.
Though he chose to be anonymous, he said: “I saw the car when it was coming. Two women and a boy were walking beside the road. Suddenly, the car hit them and hauled them to the other side of the road. Then the car crashed into a transformer. Its windscreen was shattered and the airbag was forced out.”
The reporter dashed to the church, a gated white building. Two elderly women that opened the gate confirmed that the only survivor was the pregnant woman, regretting that her mother and her son were unlucky. They said the survivor was taken to a nearby hospital, off Obafemi Awolowo Way, Ikeja.
In front of the hospital, many sympathisers were already standing, talking in low voices. At the reception, a nurse confirmed that an accident victim was brought to the hospital, noting, however, that the reporter could not see her. One of the sympathisers told the reporter that the corpses of the dead victims had been deposited in a mortuary.
A young lady, identified as Eli, a daughter of the deceased grandmother, rushed to the scene, weeping profusely. Soon after, a bus conveying members of the church arrived. Another daughter of the deceased, Sade, comforted her wailing younger sister.
But Eli couldn’t be consoled. “Has mummy died? Can daddy survive it when he hears the news? Why did she die? But she had gone to church to pray for us,” she wondered, weeping uncontrollably.
Sade, who was too sad to talk to the reporter, informed that one of the men in the car was arrested and had been taken to the Area F Police Command, even though the driver fled after the incident. It was gathered that the men in the car were returning from a club and that the one arrested was reeking of alcohol.
At the police station, one of the officers on duty, who didn’t want his name in print, confirmed the incident, noting that one of the young men in the car was in police custody.
Said the policeman: “You cannot see the man now. The man is drunk. He does not know why he is at the police station. Since he was brought here, he has not even opened his eyes.”