Ifedolapo Oladepo is the first-class graduate of Transport Management from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Osogbo, who left the comfort of her home and family to fulfil the mandatory one-year youth service corps programme. She was posted to Kano and we do not know how the news of that must have felt but she made it to the orientation camp still.

Ifedolapo lost her life in the first week of camp due to the unforgivable negligence of camp officials and in fact, everyone who could have taken a step towards saving the life of this young, beautiful and very bright star.

In justifiable anger, the deceased’s mother took to Facebook to share the details of the events that led up to Ifedolapo’s death. We’ll share her side of the story and the response of the NYSC coordinator in the state, Abdullahi Baba. We’ll let you choose who to believe but will also make our stance known:

Oyeyode Abimbola Inioluwa wrote: “You called me five hours to your death and told me to start coming as the NYSC doctors are not doing anything for you. They thought you were pretending you did not want to go for parade so they did not attend to you. When you started calling people from home they eventually gave you an injection. Immediately after the injection you called me again that you noticed a lot of rashes on your body that I should speak with the doctor who refused to talk to me. You called five minutes later and told me your tongue is twisting. They sent all your friends out after seeing all the reaction on your body after giving you the unknown injection. You said we should ask for flight and I called immediately, they told me Abuja flight is Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I told you to tell anybody in the clinic that I am a nurse, and they should allow me to speak to them. A male nurse took the phone from you and told me you are having anaphylactic reaction and they will watch you for just one hour and transfer you to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

REST ON OUR QUEEN, if you are opportuned to come back to the world pls coma as my daughter. ADIEU Oladepo Ifedolapo Amoke Mi.”

NYSC coordinator in Kano said: “The truth of the matter was that the corper did not die at the camp, she died in the hospital. She was sick, treated at the camp clinic, and when she was not responding, she was taken to second facility hospital at Gwarzo General hospital. I have reported the matter to my Head office, she was handled by our doctors in the camp before she was transferred to Government hospital. We have nothing to do with her death, the records and the file are there, the Doctors that treated her at the camp are there likewise those that treated her in her at the Government hospital”

This badly-presented “truth of the matter” sounds every bit like a lie, and saying she died in the hospital and not in camp is ridiculous. Wherever the location Ifedolapo breathed her last, she was in the care of NYSC and from every indication, she was ignored and maltreated.

To begin with, camp doctors are fresh medical graduates who as expected would have fidgeted in the situation. From her mother’s account, Ifedolapo was wrongly injected with something no one can place a finger on at this point but whatever it was, it escalated the situation.

Ifedolapo was left unattended to at the General Hospital she was transferred to and this is not new. General Hospitals in most parts of the country do not value lives and staff are unapologetically inept, so we’re not surprised.

We have both sides of the story and until investigations are concluded (we hope there is an investigation), we choose to believe Ifedolapo’s mother.