Mr. Endurance Aneje, a law graduate from the University of Calabar, left Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on April 28, 202,5, to collect a debt of about N1.8 million but ended up as a corpse in the morgue of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital. Below is his mother’s narration, punctuated with sobs and tears.
My name is Mrs. Sarah Ita.
On April 28, my son left Port Harcourt for Calabar, and that is the only child I have. My son is about 26 years old. He left Port Harcourt on 28, and I went and received him at the park on 29 in the morning. There is somebody we gave, because we used to print this pure water nylon, we gave the man a good amount of N1.8, fifty thousand. And he told me the man has not paid him. The man has called him to come to his company so he can collect the money.
The pure water factory along IBB Way in Calabar. He left my house at about 10:30 am, then later in the day, I called him and he said the man was still delaying him and that they were together. About six past, I called him, I told him it was getting late, and he should come back. He said the man just said he should hold on. Then quarter to seven, he called me and asked me if I had prepared something because he was to go back the next day. I said yes.
For the past seven years, I asked him Where are you? He said he is still with the man, that Table Water.
For hat past seven, he told me he was still with the man that he would soon be on his way. Five minutes after eight, I called both his lines; his lines were no longer connecting. His phones were off. So I continued calling his lines. I waited. I could not sleep. I waited outside till the next morning. Before five thirty in the morning, I was in that man’s company because he lives there (in the Table Water factory). I went there and I was banging on the gate. The daughter came out and saw me and ran back again. I continued banging until they came back and opened the gate. I asked my son was here yesterday. My son is a lawyer, my son was here yesterday to see you, and up till now, his calls are not connecting, he is not returning his calls. The man said Let him call my son’s line, I told him, his lines are not connecting. I don’t know who he called. When he dropped the call, he told Madamm, your son is at the Emergency Ward, Teaching Hospital. So I ran. I ran out of his gate. I went to the road, I picked a vehicle to take to the Teaching Hospital. Reaching the Emergency Ward, my son was not there. I cried and asked the nurses if my son was brought here, and they said doctors are attending to him. I asked them to let me see him, that is when they carried me to the mortuary, I saw my son lying cold, dead.
Then the nurses that were on duty that night, that was the next morning, I got to the hospital some few minutes after six, the nurses now gave me their clothes, gave me the Palm slippers, gave me the two phones. I was on the phone, I discovered that there is no SIM, I asked the nurses who gave me the phone, if my son’s ATM card is not here. That you gave me his clothes, his two SIMs are not in his phone, they said one of the nurses has the SIM card, because they said my son had fractured so that she would be able to reach out to somebody, that the SIM is with one of the nurses. They asked me to come back later in the evening, when the nurse on duty will come, that she has left, I said okay. In the evening, I was in the hospital, with men from the State Housing Police Station. On reaching there, they handed over the empty phones to the police in the same way they had given me. I asked them, Who brought my son to the hospital? Who deposited my son in the mortuary? Who brought him? They said it is a good Samaritan. You did not take his details? They said five people brought him. I said you people did not get the person’s details? They said they just brought him. They saw money in my son’s pocket, and that is the money they used to treat him? I said Okay, what are the drugs you people use to treat him? They said they bought the drugs in their pharmacy.
Now, the next day, with the police, we went there there was no trace of the drugs they gave him. The SIM card, they refused to give me the SIM card and the nurse later claimed that she had given me the SIM card, and I say no, everybody that came with me saw you did not give me the SIM card.
Since then, police have been taking us… because I have been very weak, police took me down there to invite them, they refused to come over, three weeks before they finally honoured their invitation that Monday.
Since then, they have been so hostile to me. Even the autopsy they said they wanted to carry out, they have now imposed a ban so that the autopsy will not be carried out in their hospital. I have to move my son’s corpse from the Teaching Hospital, which was on Thursday last week, to a different hospital where they have carried out
Up till now the nurses have refused to give me the identities of the people who brought my son down there. They have refused to release his ATM card to me. They have refused to give me his two sims. That is what is happening to me.
I want the government to help me. That is the only child I have.
My son’s name is Endurance Aneji. My son’s things are still with the nurses. The nurses know the people who brought him, but they have refused to tell the police the identities of the people who brought him to the hospital. If somebody brings a person who was in a coma, you are supposed to take the person’s details. They claimed they were four people and a lady. They just took him to the mortuary, my son was not sick.
