The 95- year old man, Chief Sopulu Nwankwo and his four grand children namely, Chigozie Nwajideobi (7), Dubem Nwajideobi (13) Favour Nwankwo (7) and Ugonna Nwajideobi (19) were sleeping in the same room when the incident occurred. The children often slept in their grand father’s house to watch films and football matches and because it was a weekend when many matches were played, they decided to spend the night there.
At day break, villagers became worried when they did not see anybody emerge from the compound as the gate to the house was still under lock and key. After knocking several times without response, one of the villagers ran to the son in -law of Sopulu, Mr. Charles Nwajideobi, who is the father of three children that slept in his in –law’s house that night and cunningly asked him to visit his father in -law.
When he got there and still called the names of his children without response, he used a spare key which he had and opened the house and behold, his father in -law and his two children and one other person, were found dead with foams in their mouth. His daughter, Ogonna, who was alive, did not have any strength to talk. The villagers assisted in rushing her to a private hospital in Awka where she later died.
Mr. Nwajideobi, a farmer, was devastated and sobbed uncontrollably as people consoled him. He said that when he went in the morning to bring back his children, having waited for their return without seeing them, he discovered that the doors of his in law’s house were still locked, adding that despite his consistent knocking on the gate and loud calls, nobody came out.
He said it was when he used the in law’s spare key in his possession to open the gate and the door that he found the four corpses, while his daughter, Ogonna was still alive and struggling to breathe.
Nwajideobi was even more devastated when he learnt later of the death of his daughter, Ogonna, who was rushed to the hospital. He lamented: “It was the doctor in the hospital that suggested we should take her to Enugu which we agreed to do immediately. Surprisingly, they said we should take the girl to Enugu without the life support machine. When it was removed while we were still at the gate of the private hospital, my daughter gave up. I believe that if the hospital had allowed us to carry the girl with the oxygen to Enugu, she would not have died before getting to UNTH.
“I don’t know why this has happened to me. If only I had stopped my children from visiting their grand father, they would not have died.”
His consolation, however, was that he has three surviving children. Many preachers have started visiting him to remind him that it is God that gives and takes.Though many people at the scene of the incident attributed the deaths to smoke from the generating set, which was seen close to the door to the house, Nwajideobi and some other people suspected that they were poisoned because of the whitish foams seen in their mouth.
At the hospital where Ogonna Nwajideobi was placed on a life support machine before her death, the doctor handling her case could not immediately confirm whether the girl’s condition was as a result of inhalation of fumes. He, however, said that inhalation of carbon monoxide from a generating set could lead to death and make one to foam from mouth, if there was convulsion in the process.
The traditional ruler of the area, Igwe Benedict Nweke described the incident as a tragedy, adding that such a thing had never happened in Urum. According to him, the incident has remained a mystery to the community, describing as unfortunate, a situation whereby a man lost three children and his father in –law at the same time.
Though Urum is less that 10 kilometers from Awka, the Anambra State capital, the area has not enjoyed electricity supply. The lamentation of the people was that if only there was public power supply, the children would have remained in their house and the 95 year –old Sopulu would not have slept with generating set on, with its attendant consequences.
BY VINCENT UJUMADU, Awka
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