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How UNILAG student drowned in the lagoon during baptism

By Ayodele Ale

When the General Overseer of the World Evangelism Bible Church, Pastor Samson Ayorinde arrived the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos around 6 p.m. last Saturday, after a preaching tour of the northern parts of the country, he expected to be received by his retinue of aides. That, however, was far from being the case.

Our Correspondent World Evangelism Bible Church

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As the clergyman stood wondering what could be amiss, his telephone rang and the voice at the other end dropped a bombshell–a worker in his church at Ogudu had drowned in the lagoon at Sandfill, Ori-Oke, Lagos!

The victim, Emmanuel Olayiwola, in company with one of the pastors of the church had gone to conduct a baptism service for a female member.

“You mean, my son is under water?” Ayorinde screamed. “And what are you doing about it!”

Recalling the incident, a pastor in the church, Pastor George Alao, who doubles as the General Overseer’s personal assistant, said, “It was a difficult news to break, but we had no option but to break it to him, as sad as it was. I tried to explain to him that we were helpless.”

At the time the news was being broken to the clergyman, Olayiwola, a technician in the church, who had just completed his second year at the University of Lagos where he was studying Sociology, had spent more than three hours under water. Efforts made by the local fishermen and divers, who were recruited from the neighbourhood, to recover Olayiwola’s body, were futile.

“The local fishermen were the people we could call on immediately and we believed they understood the terrain. But when they searched the lagoon, they could not get the boy’s body,” Alao said.

The explanations of the G.O.’s personal assistant did not pacify his boss. He ordered that the marine police be contacted immediately. By that time, however, it was already growing dark.

“They (marine police) told us that they were ready to comb the lagoon if we could provide a halogen lamp and other necessary facilities to light the environment,” said Tony Ogre, a resident pastor in the church.

A generator was hired and ferried to the bank of the river. Lights were put on, and the police marine dived into the lagoon. Around 12.30 am, the search party emerged from the lagoon with Olayiwola’s lifeless body, which was taken to his residence at No 6, Oyebola Street, Ojota, Lagos, where some medical personnel who had remained on standby in case he needed to be revived, confirmed him dead.

His corpse was then taken to to the mortuary of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.

The tragic death of the 28-year-old undergraduate rattled his parents beyond words. “It is a huge loss. His parents are yet to come out of shock because he was a dutiful person,” said the family’s counsel, Mr Sola Jato. “Apart from being the family’s lawyer, I am personally affected, as my aunt, who is the mother of the deceased, is yet to come out of the shock.”

Saturday Punch gathered at the church that the tragedy occurred when a member of the church named Anita Osakwe was taken to the lagoon for baptism, preparatory to her wedding in a few days’ time.

Alao said, “From our findings, the bride to be, Anita Osakwe, is a young convert who wanted to get married. She needed a reference letter to the church where the wedding was to take place. But for anybody to be recognised as a member of the church, he or she must have been baptised by immersion.

“The lady then had to join the believers’ class, where she was expected to undergo some training that would qualify her for baptism.”

But the pastor said the church found it curious that a private baptism was arranged for Osakwe as opposed to the usual practice of conducting it in batches on a quarterly basis. “It is one of the things we still have to find out,” Alao said.

It was gathered that the pastor in charge of baptism in the church, Sanni Abraham, had sought the permission of one of the senior pastors to conduct a private baptism for Anita, but the request was rejected. However, when the senior pastor travelled out of Lagos, Abraham contacted another senior pastor who did not object to the idea.

“Pastor Abraham must have been put under pressure by the girl. We learnt that her wedding was to come up in two week’s time,” Alao remarked.

While Pastor Abraham and Anita were about going for the baptism at the lagoon around noon on the fateful day, he was said to have invited Emmanuel who was just arriving the church. “The boy was such a person who could not say no to anybody. Even as at then, he had not taken his breakfast. He was so committed to the church, especially because the church is contributing a lot to his education. Even the G.O. of the church knew him personally because he was active,” Jato said.

On getting to the bank of the Lagoon, the lady to be baptised was asked to stay at the bank while Pastor Abraham and Emmanuel were said to have gone into the water to test the depth and see where they conveniently conduct the baptism.

However, the duo had barely stepped into the water when they began to drown. The battle for life then began. But while the pastor was able to break free, Emmanuel drowned.

“As Pastor Abraham himself told us, even as at the time he got to the shore, he did not know that Emmanuel had drowned, as he was asking, ‘Where is Emmanuel?’”

Sensing that the UNILAG undergraduate might have drowned in the Lagoon, the pastor and the person to be baptised immediately put a call through to other pastors in the church to come to their aid. But their efforts were futile.

A pastor in the church said, “We informed the boy’s father about what had happened and he told us that the mother must not hear, saying that we should do our best to bring him out alive.”

The local divers and fishermen invited dived in and desperately searched for Olayiwola, but their efforts yielded no positive result.

The matter was then reported at Ogudu Police Station. When Olayiwola’s corpse was eventually found, the duo of Pastor Abraham and Anita were arrested and detained at the station.

The spokesman of the Lagos State Command of the Nigeria Police Force, Mr Frank Mbah, said, “The matter was reported at Ogudu Police Station. All I can say is that investigation is going on.”

Saturday Punch, however gathered that the family of the deceased had told the church that they had accepted their fate, while requesting for the body of their son. Also, Barrister Jato said the family had decided to leave everything to God, as nothing could bring the deceased back to life.