IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – The Lagos Bus Services Limited (LBSL) has paid the N500,000 mortuary bill of late Bamise Ayanwola, who was allegedly killed by a Bus Rapid Transit driver, Nice Omininikoron.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, had earlier said the LBSL, would settle Bamise Ayanwola’s mortuary bills and take care of the burial expenses.
The Commissioner made this known after the family of late Bamise Ayanwola, who died after boarding a Bus Rapid Transit vehicle in Lagos State, said the Mainland Hospital mortuary, Yaba, where her corpse was deposited, is demanding N500,000 from them.
Bamise went missing after boarding a BRT vehicle on Saturday, 26 February.
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 deceased’s elder brother, Pelumi, 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 clamouring 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 immortalised.
“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 had stated.
The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, on Wednesday, said the bill had been settled.
He said: “The Lagos Bus Services Limited has paid the money. Nobody told them; the person who took the body there was called that the bill was ready, and instead of the person to report to the LBSL, he went to report to a newspaper.”
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran, aka Jandor, has also given over N500, 000 to the family for the mortuary bill.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported on Thursday that Adediran, after a meeting of his representative and the deceased’s family members at the Liberty House, Ikeja, said he was touched by the family’s pain.
The family was said to have commended Adediran, saying he had been in contact with Bamise’s parents since the incident happened.