Tragedy struck yesterday after the lifeless body of a 19-year-old undergraduate of Ipetu-Ijesa Polytechnic, Tomiwa Olonade, was found hanging on a noose in his parents’ compound in Osun State.
The deceased, a student of the Computer Engineering Department, had left his school to visit his parents’ apartment, at the Isokun area of Ilesa, on Saturday morning before he reportedly committed suicide a few minutes after.
His remains were spotted dangling on a rope within his parent’s rented apartment, by neighbours and other residents.
In an interview with Olonade’s octogenarian grandfather, Pa Enoch said that the deceased returned from school and requested to discuss with his mother, but his mother was not at home at the time.
Enoch, who was sobbing profusely, expressed shock at the sudden and strange death of the teenager, revealing that, “his (Olonade) mother just sent him N80, 000, yesterday (Friday) to pay his school fee.
I always send money to him whenever he complained of a paucity of funds. I am done for
“Despite all, I passed through with my daughter to give you (deceased) the best parents can do for their children, you chose to part with us in this gruesome manner,” Pa Enoch lamented.
It was gathered that the deceased, who was raised by a single mother (name withheld), had earlier phoned her to have an important discussion with her, but the mother was said to have gone to a church for service.
A few minutes after the student’s corpse was discovered, the mother rushed back home to know why her son had wanted to see her urgently.
She was, however, surprised when sympathisers who had gathered at the building prevented her from entering her compound in order not to see Olonade’s body dangling. When the sad news was broken to her, she wept bitterly.
Though the cause of Olonade’s suicide was yet to be known because there was no suicide note found with him, traditionalists were contacted to perform some rites to persuade the god of thunder (Sango) to avert a recurrence of the evil in the family.
A team of police detectives from the Ayeso A’ Divisional Headquarters, Ilesa were seen at the scene trying to gather the information that could assist their investigations.
