Sadness fell on the University of Lagos community on Friday last week as two of their members were lowered into the grave after their untimely death from electrocution while they were on official duty. “It is a trying moment for us. The two of them were senior staff. We buried one in his house at Ikotun and took the other to Ibadan for burial. It is the first time a tragedy of this magnitude would befall us. We are praying that such a thing does not happen again in the university,” lamented Mr Olusegun Odusanwo, the chairman of the school’s branch of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities.
Although the entire university community was devastated by the tragic incident, the Works Department of the school appeared to have been touched most. On the notice board of the department were posters announcing the sudden death of two of their colleagues after four of them suffered electrocution.
Tragedy had hit the university on May 10, 2010, when four of the workers in the maintenance unit of the institution, identified as Samuel Shonuga, Gbenga Kayejo, Amao and Eke, were electrocuted while they were working on the electrical installations at the service area of the school, which is a stone’s throw from the Faculty of Arts building.
“The four of them were carrying out the regular maintenance. They were not neophytes, because that was the work they had been doing for years. But whatever is bound to happen cannot be prevented, no matter how hard you try,” said an employee of the university who craved anonymity.
Strident cries from passers by had attracted other members of staff when the electrical installations the victims were working on suddenly exploded. The authorities of the university were immediately informed about the tragedy that had befallen the four employees. The four men were immediately rushed to the university’s health centre, where nurses and doctors on duty battled to save their lives.
Because of the heavy injuries they suffered, Shonuga and Kayejo were transferred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital for further medical aid, while Eke and Amao remained at the health centre. Amao has since been discharged, while Eke was still on admission at the health centre when our correspondent called.
Shonuga and Kayejo were not as lucky. In spite of the medical attention they received at LUTH, they still succumbed to the cold hands of death.
Sorrow was said to have enveloped the university when the news of their deaths filtered into the campus.
Shonuga, who was 55 years old before his untimely death, had served in the university for 31 years, while Kayejo, a former employee of the University of Ibadan who transferred his service to the University of Lagos about five years ago had just been promoted by the institution when the incident occurred.
“He was in the maintenance unit of UI for a long time before he transferred his services to UNILAG,” one of his colleagues in the works department told Saturday Punch.
Eke, one of the two survivors, had only one week left to retire from service when the incident occurred. “But for the accident, he would have left by now. He has spent more than 30 years and has not worked in any other department,” one of his colleagues said.
Investigations conducted by Saturday Punch revealed that some officials of the maintenance unit had been injured in the past but none of the incidents had resulted in death. “It is the first time we are witnessing an accident of such tragic proportion,” an employee in the department said.
The burial of Shonuga and Kayejo were scheduled for the same day–May 21, 2010– and their colleagues in the university community had a difficult time choosing which one to attend. For obvious reasons, however, the turnout at Shonuga’s burial in Lagos was better than that of Kayejo which took place in Ibadan.
The Chairman of SSANU in the university told Saturday Punch that the association was impressed by the response of the university authorities to the incident. He said although the association had supported the affected families morally and financially during the burial, they would still mountt pressurise on the authorities of the university to do something to alleviate the suffering their families could experience on account of their deaths, particularly in the area of the children’s education.
When our correspondent approached him for comment, the Public Affairs Officer of the University, Mr Dare Seth, said the Registrar of the university was in the best position to speak on the issue. However, the registrar was not available when our correspondent called at his office.
Source:http://www.punchng.com
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