Controversy trails death of BSU medical student after withdrawal from college

By Ali Adoyi
Medical students of the Benue State University are in anguish over the death of their colleague, Idoko Nicholas Ejugwu, who was killed in a car accident in Makurdi, Benue State on Friday.

DAILY POST recalls that students of the University confronted the Vice Chancellor with the corpse of the student after the incident, alleging that Ejugwu committed suicide following his withdrawal from the Faculty of Medical Sciences after having spent nearly 10 years in the college that is yet to graduate a student since its take off.


Sources told DAILY POST that Ejugwu had been re-sitting for a particular professional course since the past 3 years, and finally got withdrawn over poor performance. The source said the result which was displayed 3 days ago may have led to his death, linking the car accident to suicide.

However, some students of the college have dismissed the viral reports that Ejugwu committed suicide, describing such insinuation as unfair.

They had argued that as a medical student, the deceased had all at his disposal to commit suicide and not through a car accident, stating that if he had such intention, he wouldn’t have waited till after three days of the release of the result.

According to Kevin Adoyi, a fellow Medical Student, it was very wrong for any one to link Ejugwu’s death directly to suicide.

Adoyi said, “yes we all believe that he was clinically depressed as a result of his withdrawal, but one cannot be so sure he committed suicide. More likely, clinical depression impaired him from being fully alert in traffic. A medical student who wants to kill himself has sufficient knowledge to do so. Not by road traffic accident. Nevertheless, he may have been clinically depressed following his withdrawal.”

Narrating further on how intelligent and creative the late Ejugwu was, Kevin said his death was a colossal loss.

He said: “ID wasn’t only a brilliant medical student but a well-rounded human being. He was a grafiti artist, played basketball, enjoyed urban music, never missed church service. But what he cared for the most was medicine, particularly the operating room. He was much too caring, treated everyone with respect. Though my heart is aching, I smile. I smile because I knew a person like ID. My prayers go with him. We will miss him”, Adoyi said.

Also, one of his closest friends, Prince Dekeh has debunked the rumour that Ejugwu committed suicide.

Narrating how Ejugwu played into the hands of death, he said the deceased had played a video game with a friend inside the college earlier, after which, he headed to his uncle’s house in town. Prince said Ejugwu who was driving on a black tinted Honda Hennessy (Baby boy) was on a high speed when he saw a parked trailer and in the process of trying to dodge, swerved off, rammed into the road demarcation and somersaulted, hitting one passerby.

He said Ejugwu, who was not on a seat belt, and the passerby died on the spot.

Dismissing that Ejugwu committed suicide, he said there must be some trauma prior to the incident.

He, however, said Ejugwu should have committed suicide on the day he was withdrawn and not after 3 days.

He said, “We spoke immediately after the result was released and as his best friend, I gave him some soothing words of advice and he was fine”.

Speaking on the effect of endless wait without graduation, Prince told DAILY POST that it was a major reason for students’ poor performance.

He said as a matter of policy, the University had a way of ensuring that every student lived up to its standard, by giving them a second chance to re-sit if there was a failure of a particular course.

“But one problem we can’t dispute is the fact that these students are not even motivated academically, bearing in mind that they don’t even know when they will graduate. This is a sad development that management has to urgently address,” Prince said.

He affirmed further, “ID was my best friend. I will miss his company. He was such an easy going guy. I still find it difficult to believe he is gone. Right now, I’m in Kaduna, but I wonder how life will be when I return back to school. It’s sad,” Prince lamented.

Meanwhile, majority of the students of the college have insisted that Ejugwu’s death was not unconnected to his withdrawal. The students have blamed the school authority for failing to address the issue of continuous withdrawal of students who have made the institution their permanent home.

A student who does not want his name in print said, “imagine being withdrawn from school after 10 years. Will you take that? Most of our lecturers sat for this exams up to 4 times. Today, they are making it difficult for students who have hopelessly remained in this college since the past 10 years. We just hope the last result is revisited again”.

Other students who spoke with DAILY POST did not fail to defend Ejugwu.

A student said, “how can someone like ID fail in the first place? This was an intelligent dude. I don’t think the management was fair to him and other students who were withdrawn,” She said.

At the time of filing this report, the university management is yet to take a decision on the development.

Effort to reach the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Charity Angya failed as her mobile numbers were said not to be reachable