By Desire Emmanuel
A former Commissioner for Special Duties in Oyo State, Alhaji Muda Ganiyu, on Friday, January 6, gave details of how his younger brother lost his life as a result of the recklessness of a driver in Kano State.
Alhaji Ganiyu, who is also a former editor of the Nigerian Tribune, gave the details in a post on his Facebook page.
According to him, his brother, Abdulrazaq AbdulGaniyu, who was his mother’s fifth child, bade his wife and children farewell and left his home in Kano for work on Tuesday morning on his motorcycle.
However, unlike the days and years before that he used to go to his place of work with the motorcycle, his corpse was brought home a few hours later that day and he was buried that same day in the afternoon in accordance with Islamic rites.
According to Alhaji Ganiyu, a reckless driver hit two tricycles on the road and one of the tricycles skidded off and hit his brother’s bike from behind. This made him to hit his head on the road surface, causing him to die on the spot.
“Rasaki was a good man. He got on well with everyone in the family. We are from the same father and mother. His closest pals in the family were our half brother and sisters,” he wrote.
“When my daughter, Oluwatoyin, was a student at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, she came home only once in a year – during the long vacation. She spent the short breaks with Rasaki in Kano, or with my sister, Tawakalit, in Katsina.
“Halimah, my second daughter, was posted to Katsina for her National Youth Service after finishing from the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. She had never gone beyond Ilorin at that time, so she flew to Kano from Lagos.
“It was Rasaki I called to meet her at the Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), to escort her to Katsina Garage in Kano where she boarded a vehicle to Katsina. After her camp, which she couldn’t complete because she fell sick, it was Rasaki who met her at MAKIA again to watch her board a flight to Lagos,” he said about the good deeds of his late brother.
Giving more accounts of the accident, Alhaji Ganiyu said: “There were eight passengers in the two tricycles hit by the car, according to reports. All eight of them survived, though hospitalised. Some with broken legs or arms, some in the ICU.
“In any sane society, the driver of the vehicle will face either the death penalty or a long imprisonment after prosecution. But this is Nigeria where anything goes. The police said the driver had an epileptic seizure. Really? Was that even enough of an excuse? If he knew he was an epileptic case, why did he drive a car at all?”
