The fair-skinned woman stood in the midst of death with her three children, had a feel of death, smelled death in the stench of the burning human flesh mixed with the billowing sooth from vehicles on fire, and
they all got out alive, miraculously.
Out of fire.
As they stood there at the middle of the Nyanya bus station when the bang of death rocked the spot, she was dazed, confused and stood fixed to a spot. But how her little kids managed to also remain there with
her is an explanation she could not muster. Yet, their story is real. At the Pan-Raf Hospital in the ghetto of Nyanya, Phase 4, Sunday Sun saw the four that cheated death full of life.
When Sunday Sun got to the hospital, it was simply amazing to see the woman and her children just fit. When the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) released the list of the survivors in hospitals, the puzzle fell in places that the four names with same address and surnames and in the same hospital must be members of the same family. A text message to the contact number attached to the names, the same number, revealed it all. The owner of the line accepted to speak and also confirmed that the four survivors are of the same family.
Getting to the hospital and seeing the survivors created a different scene when the younger brother to the woman told the story of how his sister, baby nephew and two young nieces escaped death.
Brush with death
Prince Aguele Abel, a student in Keffi had that early Monday morning dropped off the sister and her children at Nyanya to catch a bus to Utako, in the Abuja metropolis, from where they would take another bus to Benin City, Edo State where they live.
Prince Abel who recalled vividly what happened said his sister was so dazed that when he ran back into the bus station to locate where they were after the blast,
she was just moving in all directions and even asked him, like one woken from a deep sleep, what actually happened. He was the one that explained to her to bring back her mind, that the park had been bombed.
He said he did things he could not even understand how they came to him, daring the flames and smoke all around, and braving it to where his sister and her children were to rescue them.
Just visitors
“That morning, I had wanted to take them to town where they would pick a bus to Benin, but changed my mind because I had a lecture to attend and taking them further would have affected my time for the lecture, so I dropped them at Nyanya to continue with their journey. In my hurry, I didn’t even assist her take their luggage to the bus. They had queued with other passengers to board when I left. It was less than five minutes after I left, and just on the Nyanya Bridge, when the bang came. I hurriedly found a place to park my car and ran back to where I left my sister and her
children. Before I could get there, the entire place had been covered in dark smoke. Luckily, I managed to locate the spot where they stood in the queue.
Surprisingly, there were all intact, except
Elizabeth, my sister’s first child, whose left leg was badly injured.”
Seven-year-old Elizabeth in hospital bed is still in terrible pains with her left leg totally covered in POP from hip to the toes. But her stable condition is still some miracle given where she came out from that fateful day.
Bleeding to death
Her uncle, Prince, said by the time they got to the hospital, she had gone pale and fading away after severe loss of blood from the injury that almost crushed the entire leg. Prince immediately donated blood to sustain his little niece that had been with him in Jos.
The father of the children, Emerson Idiakose Ailabojie, could not find enough words to describe the miracle his life and family has become. He said: “Do you
know that my family had never travelled to Abuja or anywhere in the North in the past six years. It was few weeks ago that my wife, with the children visited her younger brother, Prince. They were actually on their
way back to Benin when this happened. I have been wondering where I would have been if got a message that my entire family was wiped out. I still feel like I am dreaming to recall all that happened. It was about 10am that morning I got a call that my family was at the spot of the bombing. I left Benin immediately and drove down to Abuja. At about 3pm, I was already here. I actually don’t find enough words to explain
how I feel. Yes, the pain is there for the calamity that befell the nation. I feel bad for those that died in the incident, and I say it that the attack was unnecessary and callous. I feel for those that lost family members, and I still imagine, where I would have been or what would have been my predicament if my whole family died. I plead with Nigerians to do all that is possible to end this problem, the killing of innocent Nigerians is not justifiable and I can’t know how these persons killed everyday on the streets are part of the problems anybody would be complaining about. As I thank God for sparing my entire family, I also pray Him to spare the citizens of this nation from these attacks. I think
we have had enough calamities in the country. How would it be announced to the families that lost their dear ones that they just died in such gruesome blast?”
Miracle 4
As Sunday Sun got to the hospital, there was a woman and her little girl at the tap outside washing some dishes. It was when someone stepped out to direct us where to go that he pointed at the woman and the girl and said they are the people that survived.
As they stepped into the ward where Elizabeth is nursing the injury on her leg, the woman, Franca, her mother came in with her little girl, Christabel, 4, who
escaped without a scratch on her. Little Nathaniel, the baby his mother strapped to her back and queued to board the bombed bus was sleeping, and his father turned him slightly to show the little scratch he has on
his forehead. That is all Baby Nathaniel, a year and four months, left with from the bomb that killed over hundred people. Their mother also had a little injury that is as good as nothing. The real shock and import of the miracle they are unfolded when Prince showed in his phone, picture of the bombed and mangled bus they had queued to board with two dead bodies of the driver and the conductor just at the spot where this family was.
Death all around them
“Many people in that bus died. Many that stood in the same queue with my sister and her children also died. But they are here alive. While I remain grateful to God for such miracle, I feel the pains of what I witnessed that day. Hundreds died. I saw the whole place littered with dead bodies, many burnt. That was a dastardly act of wickedness. I can’t still understand what kind of human being that would feel good to kill human beings that way. To tell you how close that was; the car that exploded, that is where the bomb was planted was like few steps away from where I parked and dropped my sister and the children. I am sure if I didn’t hurry out the time I did, it would have been a different story for me. I still wonder how my sister and the l children survived, when people across
the road were killed and the Okada riders poles away by the roadside were killed. People were cut into pieces and many roasted and I keep asking, what did they do wrong to be killed this way?”
A different story
With the extent of disaster at Nyanya that day of death, seeing the face of Emerson Ailabojie smiling was some relief, and as he asked where he would have been, it was a recall of people that never survived the shock of losing an entire family in a disaster. When the Catholic Church in Madala was bombed on 2011 Christmas Day, a particular woman whose husband and all the children died in the blast
was a sorrowful sight. It was the same with a family in Diobu Port Harcourt that lost all their children in the Sosoliso crash in December 2005. Remembering the extent of sorrow that inhabited their home during a
visit really brought clearer the weight of what happened to this family. And the lucky man knows that yes, he has become a symbol of miracle and good news, and repeatedly said during the visit, “I don’t know how to thank God because I can’t still imagine what my life would have been if it happened the other way. I was already losing control when I got the callm until I was told that my entire family survived. So
since that afternoon I got here, I have been in this hospital ward, and I have been picking the bills on my own though I heard the federal government is assisting families of injured victims to handle the cost of treatment. I believe God they will remember those of us in private hospitals. But in all, I am not less thankful to God because what He did for me is worth more than any bill. That my family of four
persons was in the middle of that blast and all survived is a story I still don’t know how to tell.”
Source: Sun
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