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The Federal Government Tuesday said that it was studying the resolution proposed by the Senate, asking the executive arm to place the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mr. Harold Demuren, on indefinite suspension following the crash of Dana aircraft in which more than 153 persons lost their lives.
This is coming as there was drama yesterday at the Lekan Ogunsola Mortuary of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, as three different families identified the same corpse as theirs, thereby prompting the hospital to halt the release of the body to the family that originally claimed it.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, Mr Joe Obi, the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, said the Senate is a different arm of government from the executive.
“I must say emphatically that it is within the power and the rights of the Senate and National Assembly to make those resolutions regarding grounding Dana airline and the suspension of the DG.
“The executive is studying it, as these things don’t happen in a flash. Like I said, it is within the power of NASS to make such resolutions as anything that has to do with national security is crucial. I’m sure the Executive is handling the matter at its level.”
However, the Minister defended the regulatory body, adding: “The regulation of the aviation sector within the last five to six years has been up to the task.”
Asking Demuren to proceed on suspension for now, according to her, would be too early in the day. “It is like putting the cart before the horse,” she said.
This is just as the hospital’s Chief Medical Examiner, Consultant Pathologist and Forensic Medicine, Prof John Obafunwa, called the operatives of the state’s Rapid Response Squad (RRS), on the relations of late Charles Chukwudi Ntoko, who lost his life in the crash.
At about 12pm, the families of Late Ifekawa Jones had besieged the Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof David Oke, to give them a reasonable explanation as to why the corpse they had earlier identified as theirs had turned out to be up for contention.
According to the family members, they had come to the hospital on Monday after the crash to identify the deceased after which they had gone home on the premise that their sole duty after the DNA test was to come pick the body.
However, their dreams crashed as they met with stiff resistance from the hospital. According to information made available to our correspondent, two other families had claimed the same corpse when they were taken into the morgue for identification.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the family members told US that they had identified the corpse the day after the crash with his shirt, the silver chain on his neck and to cap it all, his identity card which was found in his pocket.
She said: “The day after the crash, we came to the morgue and identified him physically since his was not really burnt. From the degree of burns, we suspect that he might have d*ed of smoke inhalation rather than the explosion.
“God willing, his identity card was not burnt so it further solidified our identification and we had the impression that since he had been identified, his release would not create problems. I can even remember that the officials had told us that we were lucky that he was physically recognisable.”
According to her, “In fact, when we came his body was in a blue bag and his name and tag no were pasted on it but they still opened the bag for us to identify, which we did. Prior to this incident, I had seen the corpse two times so you can imagine my surprise at this scenario playing out at the hospital.”
Narrating the scenario that happened at the morgue yesterday, she said they had gone in to identify the corpse in preparation for release and to their surprise two other families were shown the same corpse.
She said: “since it was only the face that was shown to us for identification, we then requested that the whole body and birthmark be shown to us but they refused.”
“The other families requested for the same thing but they were also turned down. According to them, the birthmark on the back of his palm would back their claims. Why we insisted that they open up the corpse was because the face had started decomposing and we wanted to rely on birthmarks on the body.”
Speaking to the CMD, one of the family members whom WE later identified as Nnenna, the deceased’s fiancé queried the ideology of showing a corpse that had already been identified to other people.
She said: “What we want to understand is why they would show other families a corpse that we had already identified as ours and a tag put on his wrists?
They are making things really difficult for us despite knowing our emotional trauma.”
In response, the CMD who could not give definite answers to their questions promised to get in touch with the coroner to deliberate on a way out.
He said: “I was not around the first day that you identified the body so I cannot say much about the mix up or what transpired then but I can promise to speak with the coroner on your behalf. However, I can’t call out the doctor now because he is busy and if we keep calling him out, we won’t finish this process.”
In another development, the stillness of the afternoon was broken by an outburst from the Ntoko family whose attempt to identify the body of their deceased brother had allegedly met stiff resistance from all angles.
Decidedly fed up with the entire process, the deceased’s brother, Ifeanyi, flared up, demanding that the hospital administration acquiesce to their demand or they would have war at their hands.
In his recriminations, he alleged that they had met brick walls in their attempt to simply identify the corpse before concrete plans would be made for burial.
He said: “This people don’t seem to understand the trauma we are going through because if they do, they would not be treating us in this despicable manner. They keep making us go round in circles with nothing concrete to show for it.
“Going by the loss of my brother, we should not be going through stress now. It’s not as if he d*ed as an old man. Do they think that I am happy that my brother was cut down in his prime? I came back from my base in the US since Monday last week but we have not achieved much because the hospital keeps stalling things.”
However, things took another turn when Prof Obafunwa finally came out to address the members of the Chinese community who had come in droves for the DNA process.
When attempts to speak to him at the Dana Crisis Center proved abortive, the family members moved to follow him past the autopsy room.
At that point, the professor called for the RRS who had since June 3 been stationed at the door of the morgue to checkmate violence from relations. When some of the policemen sauntered in with three other security officials from Halogeen Security Outfit, Obafunwa said he was feeling threatened by the presence of the Ntoko family.
Speaking to the security operatives he said: “I am sorry but I am feeling threatened with the way they are crowding me. I only came out to address the Chinese community and not to give out information to family members.
“I understand your plight but you have to understand too that I am just a technical man and it’s not my position to reel out any information whatsoever. There are persons who have been designated to handle that.”
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