IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Olajide ‘Jandor’ Adediran, the governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, has been busted over claim of offsetting the mortuary bill of late 22-year-old fashion designer, Bamise Ayanwole.
P.M. Express gathered that the sum of N588,000 allegedly paid by Jandor to the Lagos Mainland Hospital, Yaba, was actually paid for by an official of the Lagos State Government after an invoice was generated on October 12, 2022, and paid for the same day.
The bill –included an embalment fee of N50,000, a mortuary service of N5,000 and a storage fee of N533,000 only– paid into the Lagos Mainland Hospital’s account.
Recall that voiceofnaija.ng, that the Lagos Bus Services Limited (LBSL) had paid the mortuary bill of late Bamise Ayanwola.
The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, had 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 over N500,000 from them.
Bamise went missing after boarding a BRT vehicle on Saturday, 26 February, 2022.
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 Wednesday, 12 October, 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 traumatising 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.
The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, on Friday, 14 October, 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.”
The Peoples Democratic Party’s gubernatorial candidate, also gave over N500, 000 to the family for the mortuary bill.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported 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.
On 14 October, a short video of Ayanwole-Abegunde went viral with him thanking Jandor for offsetting the accumulated mortuary bills and lambasting the Lagos State Government without having any idea of who paid.
Ayanwole-Abegunde further alleged that the family members were taken aback when they were notified by the mortuary attendant that the morgue bill had accumulated to more than N500,000 and that the family was expected to pay it.
He said: “We were surprised because we didn’t take her (Bamise) to the mortuary in the first place.
“We went to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, to get clarification but we were told that after the autopsy report, the onus lied on us to pay the bill.
“This has been accumulating without our knowledge. We are very grateful to Jandor for being moved by the story and offering to assist in upsetting the bill.”
But recent revelation has indicated that the PDP gubernatorial candidate was contacted just to score unnecessary cheap political points.