Zainab
Surrounded by a Saturday punchpunch women, her eyes flicked from side to side, dejection, confusion and extreme soberness written all over her face. The presence of the dozens of visitors trooping in and out of the modest apartment did only little to heal Zainab’s bleeding wound. It is one of the most difficult periods in the life of the young mother – one that has pushed her resolve to the limits and broken her spirits into shreds. There is no word to describe her pains.
Waking up to a beautiful and promising day on the morning of September 2, 2015, there was no reason to think that danger was lurking around the corner. Early morning prayers concluded, her husband and best friend of 16 years, Abubakar Sulaiman, had prepared to head out for his bureau de change business at the local wing of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos. Hugging and playing around with their five children – Sulaiman, 15, Idris, 14, Abdulrahman, 10, Nana, 7 and two-year-old Hauwa – that morning in his usual characteristic, the breadwinner of the family soon bid everyone goodbye, promising to bring home something special later in the evening. But sadly, the 48-year-old never made it back as promised. A fully loaded 40ft container that had fallen off the Ojuelegba bridge in the heart of the city that afternoon and landed on his black Toyota Sports Utility Vehicle, ended his life and that of two other occupants – Umaru Sulaiman, 45, and Kamilu Umar, 38, in the cruelest manner. His death leaves the entire family in shock and in agony.
Abubakar
“I started having a strange feeling from afternoon of that day after calling his mobile phone several times without a response from him,” Abubakar’s wife, Zainab, told our correspondent in their Agege Lagos home on Friday. “I became restless; my thoughts were on him all the time,” she continued. “So, I called one of his friends later that evening to find out if they were together. The friend told me that they were not together and that he had gone out with another of his friends. By the time I called that one too he was not picking so I called one of my brother-in-laws to know if he had heard from my husband.
“Not satisfied, I started calling the number of his driver, Kamilu. Later a policeman picked the call and asked who I was, I told him and he said I should tell my husband to call the number and speak with them. I told him that my husband was with the driver I wanted to speak with and immediately they cut the call. When I called back they told me to tell an adult male in the family to call the number so they could speak. By the time the news was eventually broken to me, I fainted. I don’t know how I survived those moments,” she said amid sobs as the scores of young and middle-aged women around her made spirited attempts to console her.
Hajia Fatima
Three days without Abubakar has left the once happy home in a shadow of its old self. Even though a portrait of him smiling brightly hangs in the family’s living room, the manner of his unexpected and painful death appears to have brought constant darkness into the home.
The rest of the story in saturdayPunch
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