Our daughter wanted to be a pilot, laments parents of 6-year-old killed in bus accident

The father of the deceased, Malam Mohammed Sanusi told our reporter in Enugu that each time his daughter saw an airroplane flying high in the sky, she would wish aloud that one day she would train to pilot an aircraft. “Any time she saw an aircraft flying in the sky, she would call me and […]

The father of the deceased, Malam Mohammed Sanusi told our reporter in Enugu that each time his daughter saw an airroplane flying high in the sky, she would wish aloud that one day she would train to pilot an aircraft. “Any time she saw an aircraft flying in the sky, she would call me and say daddy, one day I would like to be a pilot and fly the aircraft,” recalled  Sanusi, who said he has been residing in Enugu since 2007. But that dream never came to reality.

Safiya’s death, he said, has devastated the entire family. “Her mother, my wife, has been crying since the incident happened, and she has refused to eat or drink. Now she has fallen sick. Even my mother in-law, Mary has been feeling very bad about the tragedy,” Sanusi,30, told our reporter. He added that, “Safiya’s grandmother used to say of her, I saw the girl as someone who would grow to become an important person in life.” He said since he has been living in Enugu, the family never experienced this sort of trouble. Sanusi is married to a 24-year-old Igbo woman who sells engine oil and recharge cards to earn a living while the husband is a commercial motorcycle operator in Enugu.

Eyewitnesses account said the Peace Mass Transit bus, with fleet number PMT 34, was heading for Abakaliki from Enugu when it overtook vehicles on the right hand side and in the process overran pupils who were walking on the un-tarred part of the roadside, killing little Safiya instantly. However, the management of Peace Mass Transit stated that she never died on the spot, but was rushed to the hospital where she died some hours later.

Our correspondent gathered that the driver of the vehicle escaped from the irate mob which was angered by the dangerous driving which resulted in the accident.

The crowd was reported to have broken the windscreen of the vehicle. The vehicle was later recovered by the police and taken to Emene Police Station. The driver was also taken into custody by the police while the corpse was deposited at the Annunciation Hospital, Emene.

However, the management of Peace Mass Transit Company has accused the police of inciting the public against the company over the killing of Safiya Sanusi, a six-year-old pupil.

The company’s General Manager, Mr. Sylvanus Ozioko, told newsmen in Enugu recently that he was not happy that one of his drivers was involved in an accident that led to the loss of life, but regretted that the Divisional Traffic Officer and his colleagues, all police officers, were inciting the family of the deceased and the public against PMT.

Ozioko stated that after several meetings with the family of the deceased pupil, the company offered them N100,000 as compensation for the death and it was appreciated.

In line with the company’s policy, Ozioko said the amount is given to the family of anyone who dies from the carelessness of PMT driver, saying, “Malam Mohammed Sanusi, the dead girl’s father accepted the money in good faith until the Divisional Traffic Officer and his men were briefed on the development and they chose to discourage him from collecting the money.”

He said, “When I went to see DTO to make him understand that aside giving the victim’s family N100,000 that we were still going to fund the burial rites, he fumed.”

The General Manager, however, said that though the DTO had chosen to fight the company through the Civil Liberties Organisation, South-East zone, negotiations were ongoing.

He said, “The driver in question is still in police custody and even if he is released tomorrow, we can never absorb him. There is no driver involved in an accident that we retain in our company. If he is at fault, he has to go. There is no way we can prosper in our business if we don’t assuage the dead.”

When reached for its reaction, the CLO, through its representative in Enugu State, Mr Olu Omotayo, said, “The question is why should any driver in his right senses be overtaking another vehicle at a high speed, on the right hand side of the vehicle in its front without regard to where pedestrians are passing?

“It should be noted that the recklessness exhibited by drivers of this Peace Mass Transit Company has over the years resulted in the deaths of hundreds in this country.”

Omotayo said the law enforcement agents had a lot to do in this regard, more especially the Federal Road Safety Corps. “We cannot continue to close our eyes to recklessness on the roads exhibited by drivers of a particular company who feel that they are above the law,” he said.

He added, “We also call on well meaning Nigerians to also demand justice and adequate proper, and punitive compensation against the company (to be given to Malam Sanusi and his family) to serve as deterrent to the company so that it can check its’ reckless drivers.”

Omotayo said up till now the company has not shown any remorse over the recklessness exhibited by one of their drivers by sending condolence message to the family of the poor girl, rather its management only communicated to Malam Sanusi sometimes last week, “to come and take N100,000  as that was what they normally give to the family of the victims who lost their lives by the recklessness of the company”.

CLO therefore wondered whether human lives have become “so cheap in the eyes of the Managers of this company that they no longer have sympathy or have any regard for human lives.”

Meanwhile, the father of the deceased said on Thursday that the late Safiya was a pupil of Emene Practising School, near St. Joseph Catholic Church, Emene. He said that she was returning from school around 2pm with five other children when the accident occurred on February 17, 2012.

On the amount offered the decease’s family as compensation, Sanusi said, “let them offer something reasonable, although no amount of money can pay for the life of any human being. But when they brought N100,000, I asked them whether the money was for mortuary bill or burial expenses.”

“I told them to bring something reasonable and ever since they left and they have never contacted me again,” he told our reporter in Enugu.

However, the driver of the bus that reportedly killed Safiya was arraigned at the Enugu East Magistrates’ Court and later was remanded in Enugu Prison for dangerous driving causing death.