In the noon hours of Wednesday, 12th of July 2023, aggrieved family members and friends of an employee of a popular eatery in Amuwo-Odofin, KFC, located in the 23 road axis of Festac Town estate, took to the eatery to demand the release of the body of their loved one.
It was a chaotic scenario as even the petrol station in proximity had to stop its services for fear of an uproar.
Festaconline Media gathered that the family members and loved ones came en masse to demand the release of their loved ones’ corpses. The family got wind of their only sister/daughter’s death 24 hours after she passed and could not get access to her corpse.
It was said by KFC that the staff of KFC Festac, 20-year-old, Anita Chiwendu, allegedly slumped and died while at work.
Anita, who was the only daughter of her family was said to have started work at the Festac location two months ago after dropping out of nursing school. The incident happened when she was said to have slumped while at work.
According to KFC, she just screamed and fell while trying to hang her washed clothes. she was rushed to the hospital but the first hospital rejected her because of the deposit and it was at the second hospital opposite the eatery, who pronounced her dead on arrival.
Her corpse was then moved to the morgue without informing her family of the incident. All this happened from taking her to the hospital to depositing her body and even reporting at the Festac Police station without informing her family.
The uproar yesterday came about because, as of the time of filing this report, the family has not yet seen the corpse of their daughter. KFC hasn’t been able to show the family where her body was kept or dumped. The family is also accusing the police of not telling them where their corpse has been taken.
Festaconline Media spoke to one of the brothers of the deceased staff who narrated the ongoing ordeal.
He said
“My mom got a call from the Nigerian police on Saturday morning telling her that she had to come to the Festac Area E police station and it was concerning her daughter.”
“We thought it was something minute, maybe she got into a fight, only for us to get there to hear that we lost our sister. We were devastated, crying and all that, we asked to see her body and they said we had to write a statement before we could see her body.”
“On Sunday, we held a family meeting for selected people to go to the Police station to write our statement. On getting to the station, we were told that the IP said she was spreading clothes at the dedicated staff quarters, before screaming and falling.”
“They took her to the first hospital directly opposite KFC, and the doctor wasn’t around, so they took her to another hospital where she was confirmed dead. All we wanted was just to see and take her body.”
“We were directed to the IPO of the Police that was said to be in charge of the case, said after we asked her to take us to our sister, she said she didn’t have the tally on her.”
“On Monday we had to call a lawyer because we didn’t know what was going on, we were being given stories from different angles. Participants from KFC’s HR, the police, and a lawyer came to our house in Igbede for a meeting and we asked why KFC didn’t inform the family immediately after the incident occurred, they claimed not to be able to reach us on Friday.”
“Initially on Sunday when we asked the IPO for the body, we were told the body was at Marina mortuary, and she had the tally to the mortuary. During the meeting, we asked for her body again and they said they took her to Ikorodu mortuary without the family’s consent.”
“We had an agreement to meet at 11 am to go to see the body at Ikorodu, after we met, we were taken to the Taskforce office at Oshodi and were told that the driver with the tally wasn’t around.”
One of her brothers had this to say while other members of the family let out their frustration in various other ways, saying they just want to see her body.
Another witness, a family member also narrated that the police later called the family the next day on Saturday afternoon after they had not heard from their daughter it was the police that called and invited her mother to the station and on getting there she was informed of her death.
He reiterated that he believes that it was something else, maybe an electrocution as she was not sick and that one policeman said that it was the girl that got shocked by electricity
Efforts to reach the management of KFC Festac proved abortive as at this time of writing
This is serious. From Marina mortuary to Ikorodu mortuary? When there’s a mortuary in Navy Town. Something is definitely fishy.