Tragedy as student is electrocuted to death in Ilorin

IT was a day of sorrow to the family of Adeyanju on the loss of their first son James Tolu Adeyanju, a 25 year old student of the college of management information technology, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, who was electrocuted early hours of Saturday.



James, the first born in a family of five, who is said to be very quiet and hardly cross anybody’s path, woke up from sleep early and washed all his dirty cloths and cleaned all cleanable, preparing for the days outing. After washing, he walked into the room where he lived with his younger sister, Kehinde, a new intake of the Kwara State college of Education, Ilorin.

Other neighbours were in their rooms, not suspecting any danger to James, until his friend Bayo Oluwaseun entered the room on a mission to charge his GSM phone and saw the lifeless body of James Adeyanju, standing but leaning on the table fan placed on his table.


He greeted him, expecting a handshake as their custom is but James didn’t look sideways, which made Bayo suspect something fishy. On a closer look, he realized that his friend is dead and raised alarm about the ugly incidence.

As soon as members of a church in their neighbourhood heard, they thronged to the scene and rushed James to the nearest Lerato Hospital, Agbooba, where he was confirmed dead by a team of medical observers.

Pastors of New Life Gospel Church and some other members exercised their faith, praying for the miraculous for several hours but later resigned to fate as it dawned on them that James, one of their drummers in church may never worship with them again.




His mother, Mrs Adeyanju, also called Iya Ibeji, a petty trader, living with her husband at Bala, a village near Eiyenkorin area at the outskirt of Ilorin, was still recovering from the shock of the death of her daughter, Taiye, who died two years ago.

There was a mammoth crowd of mourners and sympathizers at the 35, Agbooba road residence of the Adeyanjus who are said to be natives of Ogbomosho, Oyo State.

While many resign to fate, some others attributed the death to an unresolved mystery adding that mere electric shock from a fan could not have wrecked so much havoc as taking a life, going by the manner of death of children of Mr and Mrs Adeyanju in a quick succession.

Men of the Police B division, Surulere were contacted and the lifeless corpse of James Tolu Adeyanju was taken to UITH mortuary at Oke Oyi.

Neighbours and peer groups said that James was an easy going, promising and resourceful young man.