A grieving father, Engineer Kassim Anthony Lawani, has petitioned the National Assembly (NASS) to compel the Nigeria Police to expedite investigations into the questionable circumstances that led to his daughter’s death at Bowen University.
In the petition authored by his Lawyer, Lawani alleged that his daughter, Precious, was murdered and Bowen University acted irresponsibly in the chain of events that led to the death.
He said ‘I hereby cry out loud, to the hearing of Nigerian Government, Nigeria Police, all media houses, human rights organisations, international community and the United Nations, to announce the gruesome conspiracy that led to the murder of my daughter, Precious Eweme Lawani, 18 years old, a JUPEB student at Bowen University, by her fellow students, during their morning devotion at their hostel premises at 6.35am of Saturday, 5th December, 2020.
‘My daughter was leading the congregation, that early morning; this made her stand out distinct in the congregation.’
He alleged that Bowen University authorities are to be blamed for the sad incident by providing an unsafe, unsuitable, highly vulnerable venue, for their morning devotion, that involved over 30 female JUPEB students. He said ‘The venue as provided for the devotion was something else, characterised with conspicuous hazards. This venue was a tiny elevated concrete corridor, and you access it from a natural ground level via five treads staircase, with no balustrades/handrails. The long trip narrow concrete corridor has its outer edges exposed, not protected to prevent tripping or easy push over or fall over by any users of this corridor.
‘A few days to when the death was reported to me, I couldn’t reach my daughter on phone, and her hostel matron who I later called told me it could be network problem, not knowing my daughter was had died. This must be investigated.
‘The three days which preceded 5th December, the black Saturday my daughter died; she died early morning of Saturday 5th December, when they were conducting their morning devotion prayers; we were reliable informed by her student colleagues, who were also present at the devotion prayers, that my daughter was leading the congregation, that unfaithful early morning. There were over 40 students all female present. The venue being elevated by five stairs of a staircase, was a big safety challenge. Apparently this corridor, the venue of the devotion, can be better described as a hazard heaven, for many reasons, like its edges are unprotected, its access five steps staircase was equally unprotected or naked, no handrail or balustrades. As the leader of the congregation, my daughter must have been floating round the corridor, she must have stopped around or near the staircase top edges, which made her vulnerable to be pushed over backward, as she was backing the staircase/corridor boundary axis and facing the congregation, and she must have also closed her eyes too.
‘A careful look at the graphic autopsy pictures, one can easily deduce and see how her skull was shattered into pieces, this was the confirmation of what her student colleagues who were present at the incident scene proclaimed; that the impact noise of my daughter’s fall was extraordinarily loud, like a bomb explosion. The Pathologist equally confirmed that the shattering of my daughter’s skull, in his postmortem report, the cause of her death, as reported in the postmortem report thus:- ‘c. Blunt force trauma to the head, b. Skull fracture, and intracranial haemorrhage.’
‘Bowen University authorities claimed that my daughter was sick, convulsed, slumped and she was rushed to nearby campus clinic, where medication was administered to her, and shortly after, she passed away. This death can’t be so easily explained.
‘Bowen University authorities have shown the highest sense of irresponsibility, inefficiency, ineptitude and incapability in handling a highly sensitive matter like this. Thereafter, a high powered detective CID panel should be constituted to probe the circumstances, which led to my daughter’s untimely death.
The perpetrators of this heinous crime must be uncovered, to face the wrath of the law’, he said.
