Bamise’s Family Laments Debt As Lagos Mortuary Demands N500,000
The family of late Bamise Ayanwola, who died after boarding a Bus Rapid
Transit vehicle in Lagos State, have said the Mainland Hospital mortuary,
Yaba, where her corpse was deposited, is demanding N500,000 from them.
The deceased’s elder brother, Pelumi, who spoke to Punch
correspondent on Tuesday, said the money was for the period his late sister’s
body was in the hospital’s morgue.
Pelumi said, “The head of the
mortuary attendants at the Mainland Hospital, Yaba, called my elder brother,
Oluwatobi, to inform him that nobody had been coming to check on her corpse
and nobody had paid anything after the autopsy was carried out.
“The person said the bills were accumulating and demanded that we
come. My brother asked if we were the ones they should be calling for that. My
brother later went to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, to
verify why they said we should be paying when we were not the one that brought
her corpse to that place.
“At Panti, we were told that after the autopsy was carried out, the
responsibility was on us and that it was no longer under their care and that
our family was to be paying the bill. My brother went to the mortuary to
collect the bill and the amount as of two weeks ago was N499,200. But the
money is over N500,000 now.”
Pelumi noted that the longer Bamise’s
corpse stayed in the morgue, the more traumatizing the situation was for the
family.
He added that the 22-year-old deserved a burial sponsored
by the government since she was allegedly killed while on a state-owned
commercial bus.
“As a family, aside from the justice that we have been clamoring for, we believe that the circumstances that led to her death shows that she fought hard and the situation exposed darkness in the Lagos Bus Services Limited and some governmental set-ups.
“So, we believe she died a hero and we want her to be buried as such. We want
her to be given a state burial and immortalized.
“The LBSL is
still operating, but as a family, we are still crying every day. Nothing has
stopped their operation since the incident happened about eight months ago.
Since the incident, we have not heard anything from LBSL; no official visit to
our house by any representatives,” Pelumi stated.
Bamise went
missing after boarding a BRT vehicle on Saturday, February 26.
Her
lifeless body was found by the roadside on Carter Bridge, Lagos Island, as the
driver of the vehicle, Nice Omininikoron, was arrested and arraigned for
murder.
The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy,
Gbenga Omotoso, said the LBSL would settle the mortuary bills and take care of
the burial expenses.
Leave the corpse for them to chop jor, what insolence?
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