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Glory Ekeleyede
The family of a 12-year-old student of New Era College in Benin City, Edo State, Glory Ekeleyede, who died about two months ago at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, following an illness, has cried out to the state government, charity organizations, as well as public spirited organizations and individuals for help to recover her body for burial.
Glory died July 15, 2022, and the management of the UBTH has seized the corpse over the inability of the parents to settle an outstanding bill of almost ₦400,000.
Narrating his predicament to journalists, father of the deceased, Samson Ekeleyede, 66, from Uromi in Esan North East local government area of the state, lamented that his daughter’s sickness had completely wrecked the family, so much so that they are still indebted to a lot of persons in their desperation to save her life.
“I learnt tailoring but that is not what I am doing. I am doing small jobs outside to feed my children. My wife sells tomatoes and pepper in the market and that is how we have been managing.
“The name of my child is Glory Ekeleyede. She was 12 years old. She was born 2009. She was in JSS 1 at New Era College. She would have been in JSS2 now that schools have resumed. She hardly fell sick. The only time she took ill was the one that led to her death. What actually happened was that we thought it was fever, or any other thing. We took her to some place. “They treated fever. After two, three days, we saw one of the eyes swollen. We were alarmed. We went to the nurse who treated her. Then after two to three days, the swollen eye started to come down. But one side of the head got swollen too, such that if you put your finger, it will almost swallow it; very soft like a new born baby.
“We were afraid and we took her to the hospital where she was born – Supreme. They said they could not handle the case and they referred us to Specialist at Ring Road. Specialist now referred us to UBTH. That is how we got to UBTH. That was June 29, 2022.
