PHOTO STORY:JOBLESS GRADUATE ATTEMPTS SUICIDE IN AKWA-IBOM

The term frustration was yesterday put in proper context when an unemployed graduate of mechanical engineering from the Ekiti State University, Mr. Sunday Omotayo, was prevented by police and Nigeria Prisons officials from committing suicide.


Omotayo, who created a minor scene along Wellington Bassey Way, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, when he deliberately jumped out of a speeding Toyota Hiace bus, with the hope that he would be hit by oncoming vehicles or run over, said he was fed up with life after searching for a job for the past 10 years after graduation.

According to PUNCH Metro report, Omotayo had gone to the state prison Wednesday morning asking the officials to either kill him or make way for him to rot in the prison.

A prison officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they saw Omotayo, well dressed and wearing a tie, running towards them. He added that the unemployed graduate’s action forced the guards on duty to be alert as they readied 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.

However, Omotayo was not done yet in his suicide attempt as he leapt out from the moving 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 convince him to get him out of the road. He insisted that he must put an end to his misery by committing suicide.

Speaking with PUNCH Metro, Omotayo 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”.