MONEY INDEED CAN’T BUY LIFE, I WATCHED HIM DIE.

Yesterday, I spent the last penny I had in my pocket and the last in the bank trying to save a life, still the life was lost on the process of saving it.

As at exactly 8pm yesterday 15^th of October 2017, at IJAYE bus stop Lagos state Nigeria.

Mr Afolabi Kolawole met his end. While trying to cross the express, (though there is a pedestrian bridge there) he was knocked down by a speeding motorcycle. He was a plumbing engineer.

Now here comes the reason why I’m writing this article.

I’m a traveller and at times a travellers life is not all about visiting beautiful places, taking pictures and enjoying brighter views from a 5star hotels in the beautiful cities. A traveller at times does a lot of charity work and at times help to save life if he can.

In all these, a traveller sometimes have a success story to tell and sometime a sad one.

Just like yesterday I travelled to Lagos to visit a friend and also to visit places I have not being to in Lagos. When I left my friend’s house on getting to the junction where I will board a bus going to ogun state Nigeria. I saw a spot where almost hundred people gathered and some were screaming JESUS JESUS and some GOD, GOD. I got confused and I now asked one the people standing what the problem is because I was unable to figure out why they were shouting Jesus. Then he told me that “bike don knock person down” (somebody has been knocked down by a motorcycle). Now I got more confused why people will just gather and be shouting Jesus while the accident victim is on the express loosing tons of blood. Now here comes my question if it is ignorance of what to do or were they afraid of what to do? So I managed to make my way to the centre and behold Mr Afolabi was losing lots of blood and was bleeding inside his brain which was unknown to us until when I took him  to hospital. Now how funny is it, people shouting JESUS and GOD while they supposed to take the injured to hospital.  Immediately I abandoned my mission of going back to ogun state and I started begging the tricycle drivers at the junction to help take him to hospital, virtually all of them asked me the same question if he is my relative of which I have not met Mr Afolabi before neither do I know him from Adam. So after begging for almost twenty minutes one of them decided to take me and Mr Afolabi to a nearby hospital (Longing Hospital Ijaye). On getting to the hospital thank God the hospital managed to give him first aid treatment and referred us to General hospital at ILEPO. The journey wasn’t funny nor easy as written. Because we faced many huddles on the road. People’s negligence, begging road users to slow down so that we can pass and encountering a soldier in a bus who don’t want to listen to me explaining to his driver that we have emergency that he should create a space for us to pass the traffic jam. General hospital ILEPO is not a specialist hospital. On getting to ILEPO general hospital, they received him immediately and administered first aid treatment and also brought some machines I don’t know their names and connect to him in other for him to breathe well. And drip was given to him. All these while we were busy trying to contact his family or friends. Thanks to God he didn’t lock his phone with security code (don’t ever lock your phone with code in case of emergency). In his phone no number was actually stored properly except for his co-workers their numbers were properly stored like “Kunle Tiller”. When Kunle was contacted that his colleague had accident he replied that he is not living in his (Afolabi) area. Then I didn’t give up on trying the numbers in his phone until we contacted one IYA (Mrs) who contacted his daughter. While at General hospital ILEPO we bought temporary form and the doctor prescribed some drugs and finally he told us that we have to take him to LASUTH (Lagos state university teaching hospital) at IKEJA, the capital of Lagos state. The daughter arrived by 10:30pm in the hospital at ILEPO. I begged the hospital management if they can borrow us their Ambulance but they refused and told me that it is not done that way. Thanks to God the Tricycle driver has decided to join the help though he will still be paid by me later in the night. So we took him together with the daughter to LASUTH, a journey that took us 40minutes. While on our way to LASUTH I noticed that he stopped breathing. But I can’t tell the daughter because I have been exhausted, I can’t be able to control her on the road if she starts crying and rolling on the road. So on getting to LASUTH they doctors and nurses responding quickly although that was late already. Looking at the doctor’s face I can say he is already crying but he can’t show it because it is his profession. Looking at him he is very tired because they were attending to emergency situation when we arrived. He asked me, are you his family? I said no I was just a passer-by who decided to bring him to hospital. But now you can call me his family He said to me that the man is dead. After a while the daughter overheard my conversation with one his relative and she burst out crying. Uncontrollably she was shouting BABA MI OTI KU. (My father is dead).

Mr Afolabi Kolawole was confirmed dead at 12am 16^th of October 2017.

Since I was born I have not witnessed somebody die. I have seen somebody get shot but he didn’t die but yesterday was me looking at somebody while he gave up the ghost.

All the emergency response team we called right from the spot of the accident none responded, and none called back to confirm our report.

He has been confirmed dead and his family is with him and my money didn’t buy his life back. I was disappointed and unhappy. That’s when I realized that I was still in Lagos. I started looking for a way to find a bus going to ogun state. With blood stains on my hand and clothes nobody offered me a ride until I found a place I washed out some of the blood stains. Finally I got a bus that took me to my destination and I got home by 1pm.

I tried to save a life and lost it.

My money couldn’t buy his life back.

I watched him die.

But that’s not the end of the road I said to myself.

Time to wash the stained clothes.