My Wife Was Still Alive After The Accident Wouldn’t ‘ve Died If….
Alhaji Fatai Suleiman, the bereaved husband of Late Selimota Suleiman, Principal Accountant of the Nigerian Television Authority, Channel Five, Abuja has spoken up regarding the incident.
It was earlier reported that the deceased, Late Selimota Suleiman had died from a ghastly accident involving a collision between a moving train and her personal car while she was attempting to cross the railway last Thursday in the Kubwa Area of Abuja.
In an exclusive interview with Punch News, the bereaved husband spoke about his relationship with the deceased, how he got to know about the unfortunate incident, the kind of person the deceased was and other things to know about the deceased.
On the fateful day of the incident, the bereaved husband narrated that, he was lying down on a coach in the living room while his wife prepared for work. He said, ‘I looked at her and called her Mrs Suleiman. As I didn’t intend going to my office that day, I told her to please bring something from her office when returning. She looked at me and laughed and she left’.
He continued that after his wife left the house, he quickly went to his friend’s house to pick up something. While at his friend’s house, his friend’s wife ran into the house and broke the news. She wasn’t certain if it was Selimota’s car or not but she told them about the accident and they all rushed to the scene.
He said when he got to the scene, he was unable to confirm if it was his wife or not, as security personnel prohibited anyone from getting close to the accident scene. He however confirmed later when someone called his wife’s brother with his wife’s number and told him that his wife had sustained an injury.
By the time her body was recovered, she had given up the ghost completely, he noted. Hence, she was buried the same day following Islamic rites.
Reacting to the report that some eyewitnesses brought out phones to make video of the incident, the bereaved husband said he doesn’t want to see the video.
He wonders why people’s instinct was to record a vulnerable person who was struggling to eschew calamity rather than to lend a helping hand to her.
‘I heard that somebody somewhere was making a video of the incident, which I refused to watch till today and I will never watch it. According to those that watched the video, they said my wife trying to open the door to come out.’
‘The video wouldn’t have been more than one or two minutes long. I wonder why such a person was doing that instead of helping a fellow human being. I thought that person would have probably assisted instead of making a video’.
He added that passersby only started rendering help after the calamity had occurred. ‘After the calamity had occurred, that was when people were struggling to get to the scene.’ –he noted.