A Facebook user, Jaafar Jaafar shared this touching post written by Hafiz Bobby Usman:
"That was also how Monica was hit by a car on the road to Gwarinpa just
after the Life Camp roundabout here in Abuja, and her body left in the
middle of the road with roadside traders going about their businesses
and some cars actually driving over her body. When I drove up and saw
the situation, I parked my car, stepped onto the road to halt the
traffic and asked some of the people there to help me get the body off
the road.
"That was when everyone started rushing to help. We
managed to get in touch with her family who live just across the road
but had no clue what was happening a few metres away, and the Life Camp
police station who sent two of their officers to accompany us to the
hospital.
"We took the body in my car to the Wuse General Hospital and that was
where another drama ensued.
"The mortuary attendant demanded we pay N25,000 to, according to him,
buy chemicals to embalm the body, etc before he would accept the body. I
told him and the doctor in charge point blank that we would not pay a
kobo since the government had already provided for that in the
hospital's budget! I raised so much hell in the hospital that night that
they eventually had to cave in and accept the body just so peace could
return! After that, we went back to the police station where I wrote a
statement.
"I was so disturbed that night that I couldn't sleep so I got the day's
Sunday Trust newspaper to read. That was when I saw that my Oga, Tope
Fasua's Global Connections column that day was on the menace of
pedestrians being knocked down by motorists on Abuja roads. I sent him a
text message narrating that night's incident. The next morning, I
received a phone call from one of her brothers to inform me that they
had retrieved the body from the morgue and were already on the way to
their hometown of Zangon Kataf in Kaduna State for the funeral.
"The following week, I stopped in Zaria on my way back to Abuja from
Birnin Kebbi. As soon as I switched on my phone, text messages asking
God to bless me, etc started coming in in torrents from numbers I didn't
know. Not knowing what was happening, I bought a copy of the day's
Sunday Trust only to discover that my Oga above had published my text
message to him the previous week in his column of that week!
"The point is when you see something wrong being done, try as much as
possible to change it. Don't wait for someone else when you can do it
yourself, because everyone else is waiting for someone else. And in the
end, nothing gets done while everyone keeps complaining about how bad
things are"
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