An
unemployed engineering graduate of Ekiti State University, Mr. Sunday Omotayo, was on Wednesday prevented from committing suicide by the police and prison
officials
in Akwa Ibom. Omotayo, who caused a stir along Wellington Bassey Way,
Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, when he deliberately jumped out of a
speeding Toyota Hiace bus, expecting to be crushed to death by other
vehicles, said he was tired of life as he had been
searching for a job for the past
10 years after graduation.
According to Punch,Some policemen, who were on patrol at
the time of
the incident, told a Punch correspondent that Omotayo had in the
morning gone to the state prison asking the officials to either kill him
or make way for him to rot in the prison. A prison
officer,
who craved anonymity, said they saw him – well dressed and wearing a
tie – running towards them. He added that his action forced them to
become alert with their guns. He said:
“The next thing he said was ‘shoot me, shoot me, I want to die, I am
tired of this world. He added that otherwise, we should allow him to
enter and die inside the prison.'
The official stated that Omotayo was later overpowered by the police,
who counselled him and forced him into a bus heading towards the Ibom
Plaza roundabout. An
eyewitness,
Mr. Effiong Bassey, said Omotayo jumped from the bus into the major road
for other vehicles to run over him. Lying on the main road leading to
Akwa Ibom Government House, it took a while for policemen to get him out
of the road.
Omotayo insisted that he must put an end to his poverty-stricken life by committing suicide. He said..
"There is no state that I have not gone to in search of a
job in the past
10 years.
I came to Akwa Ibom because this is my last hope because of the stories
of Governor Godswill Akpabio and his uncommon transformation. I came
with the hope that with what is going on in the state, getting a job
would be easy so that I can begin to be a man. But since I came, I
discovered that many people from Akwa Ibom are also crying because of
poverty and joblessness.
