Father of Suleja INEC bomb victim ‘My late daughter always said she’d take care of our family’

The grief-stricken father says his losses would have been more if Victoria had not asked her two other sisters who applied with INEC as Polling Officers to remain at home while she goes to the Kwamba office of INEC to check if their names were on the list. She kept in touch with the family […]

The grief-stricken father says his losses would have been more if Victoria had not asked her two other sisters who applied with INEC as Polling Officers to remain at home while she goes to the Kwamba office of INEC to check if their names were on the list. She kept in touch with the family at home until 6pm of the fateful day when her phone suddenly went silent. The following day after the news of the blast filtered in and he went to the hospital to check, hospital officials would not allow him access to the wards and mortuary at first.

 

“It was when I tried all possible efforts to get the nurse on duty to help me see those affected by the blast and I met a brick wall that I decided to take the last option by asking friends to help me check the mortuary. They found out that she was dead but said nothing to me about it. They tried to delay telling me that the worst had happened, but it later dawned on me that she was dead,” he told Weekly Trust.

The father of the 39-year-old graduate of Office Technology and Management from the Federal Polytechnic Bida says his daughter had promised to upgrade his standard of leaving by building him a house once she gets a good job after her NYSC. It was in her quest to provide her family with a good life that she always takes advantage of all opportunities available to her, which he says includes working as a Polling Officer for INEC. He says he will never recover from her demise.  “As a mechanic, I worked very hard to put food on the table. I made sure that I will not just stop at providing bread for my family but was also aware that giving them the basic academic training is important to give them security in future,” he said.

Akande says that despite his loss, he has faith in Nigeria as a country, adding that he hopes the country will soon grow out of its present situation of resorting to force when ordinarily issues can be fixed through civic means. The 52-year-old mother of the deceased, Mrs Juliana Akande who was in the midst of sympathisers is a trader at the Suleja market. She says they had no premonition of what was coming at their daughter, adding that she was as ebullient as always.

The Head Hospital Services Mr Husseini Iyabagi, disclosed that Victoria died when she was just about to be removed from the ambulance in Minna.

The big question now is will this bereaved family that have invested their life’s savings on educating their daughter ever get any form of compensation even though she died trying to serve her country? The painful truth is that is not likely. Victoria was unemployed as of the time of her death and she has no insurance coverage. Her wasted life is shared by many other Nigerians who have been claimed within the past few months by one form of politically-motivated violence or the other. As politicians celebrate victories, many families are grieving.