A Bus Rapid Transit, BRT, bus crushed a 16-year-old schoolboy, Daniel Ezekiel, to death at Ogolonto Bus Stop, along Ikorodu Road in Lagos.
This caused major mayhem and bus rides were suspended for the day.
The guardians of the boy are still reeling from the shock of his loss and can’t quite come to terms with it.
According to the Vanguard, one of the boy’s guardians, Mrs. Oyesanya said that she’d given Daniel breakfast and that he was in high spirits when he left the house to go to school.
She said; “But we didn’t know that was the last time we will see him,” they wept, adding: “We fed Ezekiel at 7:15am but picked up his corpse two hours later, at about 9:45am.”
Mrs. Oyesanya spoke of her experience on the day saying; “And on that fateful day, he left home to school. But I was alerted of the incident that happened by someone who told me to find out if Ezekiel was safe. Immediately I started calling his teacher, but she refused to pick my call.
“I thought they were on assembly ground so I called the school director who also didn’t pick my calls. At that moment, I knew there was a problem.
“I was confused and my husband also called to inform me to proceed to his school. On my way, someone told me that Ezekiel had been rushed to Ikorodu General Hospital.
“When I got to the hospital premises, I was told to identify the lifeless body of Ezekiel; at that moment, I knew I had lost our dear child. I couldn’t believe my eyes that the child I fed at exactly 7:15am had become a corpse for me to pick at exactly 9:45am,” she said amidst tears.
“We are only two in this house, my husband and I. Since we are getting old and all our children are grown up, we thought it will be nice to have a small child that can keep us company. So we contacted a lady in our community to help us find someone to stay with us.
“They eventually helped us to get Ezekiel from the Northern part of the country; that was around August last year.
“Our initial plan was to enroll him in school by October this year but due to the fact that it was late to do so, we decided to enroll him in January this year, a decision I now regret.
“He was 15 years when they brought him to us, and they told us that he was in JSS3 in Kaduna State before he came to Lagos. But when we took him to school, they told us that he should start from Primary Four”.
“He is a very pleasant child. Sometimes after offending me and I threatened to send him back to the village, he would beg me and say: ‘Mummy pray for me, I will not do that again’.
“People in this community liked hi, and education wise, he showed a lot of promise.
“Whenever he returned from school, before taking his meal, he would do his assignment and ask me to look at it; and in case there was any error I would correct it for him”.