Double tragedy for family as NYSC records another death at Taraba

The 43-year-old National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in Nigeria has hit the news again – for all the bad reasons.

Its batch B, first stream of 2016/2017 service year which began the orientation exercise on November 24, 2016 has recorded one painful death of participants too many across the land. The latest count is the mysterious death of 27-year-old Lillian Nkechinyere Amakor, a graduate of Sociology and Anthropology from Imo State University.

Lillian was in the Batch B-2016 NYSC Orientation Camp which commenced January 24th and ended February 13th, 2017. She died at her state of deployment, Taraba, under unacceptable circumstances that have become a pattern in the NYSC scheme.
Before then, deaths were reported in Abuja, Bayelsa, Kano, and Zamfara state orientation camps where

Chinyerum Nwenenda Elechi, Ifedolapo Oladepo and Monday Asuquo and others respectively, lost their lives. The pervasive outrage that attended these unfortunate incidents was informed by the belief in many quarters that the deaths could have been averted if the organisers of the camps had been adequately prepared for the exercise and more alert to their responsibilities.

Sadly, negligence and inadequate capacity were believed to have occasioned the loss of these young and promising compatriots in their prime.

The last of three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. James Iheanacho Amakor from Umualumaku, Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State, Lillian’s mum, Mrs Mercy Nne Amaior, took all of three months (February to May) to recover from the loss of the most important child of her womb before she could talk to The Daily Times.

The sordid story

On the 13th of February Nkechi told her mother on phone that she had caught cold at the camp where they sent her. “I offered to go and look after her, but another corper there said that won’t be necessary. I heard them tell Lillian jokingly that she must be her mother’s pet.

James Iheanacho Amakor

“A man called my number the next day and said Lillian is sick and asked for money to pay for tests and some medicines. He identified himself as Joseph Asumbu, principal of Gdss Kassa, the school my daughter was posted to serve after the orientation. I sent N29,000 to the account number he gave me; I asked again if I can come but he said that won’t be necessary.

A lady who identified herself as Faith, a corper in the same school said she is taking care of Lillian. She will not let me talk to my daughter. They took her phone and ATM card and this Faith had made withdrawals from Lillian’s account within the few days.

Points to ponder: N40,000 was sent to Principal Asumbu’s personal account on Tuesday Feb 21st. When the Amakors could retrieve Lillian’s phone afterwards, it was discovered that N29,000 had been withdrawn from her account on Sunday the 19th of February. It was after N40,000 was posted to Principal Asumbu’s account that Faith called the dead corper’s father and said the NYSC requires any of them to come.

Said James Amakor: “I called Asumbu to know whether he was aware that NYSC is asking us to come, and he said “No problem at all, when you get there, Lillian will come out,” and I thought he was making sense. I didn’t know they had killed my daughter at that time.

“According to hospital record, she was taken from wherever they had kept her (while collecting money from us and withdrawing from her account) – to the Federal Medical Center the next day, Monday 20th February.

“A call came from NYSC after midnight of Tuesday (opening hour of Wednesday 22nd Feb) inviting either my husband or myself to come. Why did Asumbu demand N40,000 from the Amakors, and what did he do with the money? Also, why did Corper Faith withdraw N29,000 from Nkechi’s account, and what did she do with the money? These two have important explanation to make to the Amakors, the police and the Nigerian public in general; they must clear their names before God and before man.”

Rosemary Collinus (nee Amakor), a resident at Taraba who went on a fact finding mission, gave her account:

“When I got to Taraba, I found the name of the Local Government she was posted to (after her orientation) is called Yorr LGA and the name of the school she was stationed is Gdss Kassa in the same Yorr LGA in Taraba State.

The name of the principal of the school is Joseph Asumbu; he took Corper Lillian and hid her in his house, deceiving her parents that all is well for almost a week while he extorted money from the Amakors and his accomplice, Faith who claimed to be caring for her was withdrawing monies from Lillian’s account.

They only took Lillian to the Federal Medical Council few hours to her death and she arrived there almost unconscious.

What Asumbu and Faith did with Nkechi for those days inside his house is best known to him and his God.

NYSC speaks

Responding to nationwide outcry over pain the National Youth Service Corps is causing families across the nation, the NYSC in a statement issued by its Director-General, Brig. General, Suleiman Kazaure, in Abuja denied the impression that the deaths were recorded because of negligence by its personnel.

He said, “The deaths largely followed brief illnesses and after medical teams in the camps battled to save them in line with established procedures.

“The NYSC management appreciates the concern of stakeholders, and wishes to assure the general public, especially serving and prospective corps members as well as parents and guardians that the scheme will continue to take measures aimed at ensuring the security and general well-being of youths enlisted to serve the nation on its platform.”

The “established procedures”, The Daily Times gathered first hand, is that any medical expenses up to N1000 is referred to Abuja for “clearance” while the fate of the patient hangs in the balance.

The “high-powered committee” set up since November 2016 to investigate the immediate and remote causes of the loss the Corps members is yet to make its findings known.

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Corpers, a people docile, detached and withdrawn

A recent editorial of a national newspaper described the psychological withdrawn this condition has created in serving corpers as worrisome. One would wonder why our promising participants – all graduates of tertiary institutions, have become so docile that they do not protest the indignity of their conditions. They tolerate sub-human conditions in the orientation camps without protesting.

Even when one of them got killed in a controversial circumstance in Kano, others simply continued their orientation programme without any fellow feeling. These somewhat detached and withdrawn educated youngsters are not the type of future leaders Nigeria needs to make the much needed difference in the country’s challenged socio-political space.

It is not being suggested that ‘corpers’ should take the law into their own hands. But as critical agents in the process of nation building, it is expected that they will constructively but firmly disapprove of misconduct by camp officials and their exposure to harsh and deleterious conditions in the camps.

The paper urged a comprehensive appraisal of all the orientation camps in the country to ascertain the living conditions, the state of infrastructure and facilities, the health care system and the actual level of utilisation of resources deployed for the care and welfare of the youth corps members.

Proven cases of official negligence should be punished while those found to be diverting the scheme’s resources to personal use should be made to face the full weight of the law. This audit is without prejudice to the inquiry into the tragic deaths of the three corps members which President Muhammadu Buhari has directed.

The investigation should be thorough and appropriate sanctions should be meted out to those who are guilty of official misconduct, negligence and deliberate apathy that resulted in these avoidable deaths.

Story behind the tragedy

Mother of the later youth corper, Mrs. Mercy Nne Amakor, slowly coming out of the shock of losing her cherished last of three daughters revealed to The Daily Times the “finger of fate” that caused Nkechi to painfully become her last daughter and why they were very close. In her pain, Mercy laments that Nkechi represented the other children she could not have, because of a tragic medical error after she gave birth to her. Her story:

I had Nkechi at Roschan Hospital at Shasha area of Alimosho LGA. She was my third, and I looked forward to having many children after her, but three months after I birthed Nkechi, I felt some pain in my stomach and when I consulted the hospital at Roschan, the doctor there told me I was going to have what he called ovarian cyst. I didn’t know what that meant because I was young in marriage, about 28 or 29.

Her regret: I don’t know the fate that took me to Roschan hospital at Shasha, because I delivered my first two children at Motayo Hospital at Ikeja without problem. It was my landlady at the time, one Mrs. Adesoga, who suggested I should be checking myself at the General Hospital before going to private hospitals to deliver. She meant well, I suppose, but Motayo was the company hospital of NAACO where I was a staff.

At the General Hospital I was referred to that Roschan to do a scan, to see what the baby looked like. The expatriate doctor I met there, a German lady (her husband was a Nigerian, from Edo state), persuaded me to have my baby there, and without thinking, I said, well, since I was referred to them, let me just make a change. I wasn’t to know that would be my undoing.

The baby weighed almost 5kg when she was born. I didn’t have any problem, but after three months, I experienced turning of my stomach, and when I complained to the doctor, she said said she suspected ovarian cyst. I didn’t think to cross check with Motayo hospital or anywhere else to confirm, and that’s why I am crying for the loss of my Nkechi.

So they performed the operation at Roschan hospital. I didn’t know what they did and they didn’t show us anything, but after the operation, I noticed I just could not get pregnant again and that was how I stopped having children.

Now 56, Mercy said she was supposed to sue the hospital at the time, but it didn’t occur to the family.

“I was young and my husband too. When the doctor at my company hospital and my boss learnt of what they had done to me, they were very angry. The doctor queried them; I remember them arguing over some medical terms which my husband and I didn’t understand or know anything about, but I recall that she asked them, “Did she tell you she doesn’t want to have more children? Why did you do this without their consent – and you couldn’t even tell me?”

Mercy suspected the doctor concluded on the operation because her stomach had not settled to its normal size after she had her first two daughters and this Nkechi within three years without break. “That is why the doctor concluded wrongly that I had a problem which I didn’t have,” she mourned.

Because of that, if anyone called Nkechi “Last born”, she takes it badly. “It pains me even more because I was still young then and I intended to have four more children after Nkechi. So my Nkechi represented the children I couldn’t have, she was the life I could not give to other children that I should have had; that’s why she was emotionally and psychologically and biologically embedded in my soul, my spirit and my blood,” and she wept uncontrollably.

When she could speak again, Mercy recalled when her daughter was going for the service: “When she was going for that service, my Nkechi was full of life and healthy; the medical test gave her a clean bill of health and she was full of happiness; we all celebrated with her and sent her forth.

“My Nkechi was not sick before she went for service; she wasn’t living with any medical condition. It is NYSC that killed my daughter, and I leave everything to God.”

OVARIAN CYST – What it is

Madam Oriyomi Adeosun, a medical expert and social worker, took The Daily Times into the medical condition called ovarian cyst.

Her discourse: Cyst is a condition that cause a growth in the ovary which can make it to undergo certain changes that can make it watery and become infected, but this can be treated, depending on how bad it is.

From the account of the woman, Mrs. Amakor, doctors can remove the ovary, but it cannot be the cyst that made them to remove it. As a professional caution, there should have been all kinds of tests done to ascertain what is the exact problem, before they take a decision like that, and they should have told her they were going to remove her ovary.

Beside that, there are two ovaries that produce the female egg. If the female egg cannot produce, there’s nothing they can do, but even if it is, the second one should be functioning. As far as possible, as a practice, doctors should always try to preserve the other one at least because it is rare that both get infected at the same time.

It is unfortunate that this happened that way and it is a long time ago. There are some people whose ovaries are not producing eggs, but they can get donor eggs or even donor sperm so they can still have children.

That won’t be the same as her biological child now, would it?

That’s true, though, but the baby would grow right inside her as her own natural baby would.

Well, if there should be a DNA test, the test will prove the baby is not her flesh and blood?

Yes, of course.