Ojia Adamolekun is the only sister the Ademolekun brothers
had. Her younger brother, Irawo, was murdered in traffic on Friday while her
elder brother, Imole, died nine years ago in a car accident.
This was her tribute to Imole on her
blog, Sweetness.blogspot.com, on March 3, 2010:
“Affliction shall not rise a second
time,” says the Lord.
It was about 6am on May 16, 2004. My
phone was ringing so loud I had to get up; it was my mum and I was wondering
why she was calling me that early. I picked up my phone and said, “Good morning
mum.” She replied in a troubled tone and said, “Good morning baby, sorry I had
to wake you up but this is really important and I want you to listen
carefully.”
I sat up immediately and I said,
“Mummy is there a problem? Is everything alright?”
“I just had a terrible dream about
your brothers, that one of them had a bandage around his head and his right
thigh,” she said.
Now, at this point I was worried
because my mum is a prayer warrior and I had known with time that her dreams
were to be taken very seriously. She continued saying, “Please tell them not to
get into any fight with anyone please.”
I got up immediately after my mum’s
call and dialled my younger brother’s phone and my elder brother picked it up.
I narrated mum’s call and told him to pass the message on to our younger
brother. He was also worried because we always took dreams from my mum very
seriously. He had just finished his third year in medical school and the results
were out.
The next day, which was a Sunday, my
brothers went to church (BLW in Igbinedion University) and came back to their
hostel at about 11am.
Marvin Solomon, a friend of ours from
Lagos, who also attended Igbinedion had just arrived from Lagos with a taxi and
the taxi was to return to Lagos immediately, so my elder brother decided to
take the free ride home with his excellent results in his second MBBS.
They had driven out of the school
gate towards the community bank in Okada (one minute from the school gate) when
a mechanic was test driving a car and ran into their car.
The school hospital was just two
minutes away and people around the area immediately rushed my brother to the
hospital.
The doctors said he needed an
ambulance to take him to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital immediately
because he had a head injury and his right femur had been fractured while he
lay comatose.
My younger brother was already with
him and called me to give me a feedback on the situation as I was not with them
but in Lagos to collect fresh orders of the GLITZ magazine that I did weekend
jobs with.
My mum called me and said, “Ojia,
please head back to school right away to see what exactly is going on please,”
and at this point, pandemonium was an understatement for what I truly felt.
Adrenaline pumped through my system
like oxygenated blood. The ambulance had still not arrived and we had to move
my brother to the teaching hospital in Ugbowo Benin. I literarily ran to Edegbe
Line to get the last bus but they had closed, so was Eagle Line and Delta Line
because it was a Sunday evening.
The ambulance never came and my
younger brother, Irawo, had to get my elder brother Imole, to the teaching
hospital with help from Wale Ojo, a final year computer science student of the
institution who had a car.
Events changed as he got to UBTH and
was placed on oxygen immediately with a collar round his neck, bandages round
his forehead and right femur just as my mum saw in her dream.
Irawo spent the night with Imole as
we spoke on the phone every 20 minutes talking about his vital signs and if he
had woken up from the coma.
My parents on the other hand, were
praying and also calling us for more news on his state.
The next morning, I got up from my
bed, (oh, I didn’t get any sleep at all) after saying all the prayers I knew
best with all my heart and went to Eagle line in Yaba with a colleague of mine
called Vivian Gilbert (now Mrs Vivian Kenedy) and just as we were crossing the
road, Irawo called me and said, “Ojia there’s no use, he is dead.”
I asked him gently in the calmest
voice I could use. He repeated the same statement with him wailing for the
first time in his life. I was in the middle of the road and I started wailing
and screaming from my inside; cars just kept going left and right away from me
as if they had just seen a mad black woman in rage.
Vivian dragged me off the road to the
car-park as we boarded a 504 station wagon to Okada. The journey was the worst
I had ever encountered. We sang worship songs to God as I also questioned how
He could let this be. When we got to Okada, I went straight to see Irawo and
held him with all my heart as we cried in each other’s arms as he was now my
only brother….
Imole Seth Ajileye Adamolekun was
born on April 18, 1983 and he died in God’s bosom on May 17, 2004 and was
buried on May 18, 2004.
Please I use this opportunity to
appeal to the government to please equip all hospitals with constant light,
ambulances and good doctors.
If my brother was given some
resuscitation, he would have survived.
If the ambulance functioned, he would
have survived.
If there were no reckless drivers, he
would have survived.
If there were airbags in the cab, he
would have survived.
This could have been anyone’s son,
brother, and friend
Source:
Punch
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