{"id":36934,"date":"2021-11-17T08:55:55","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T07:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=36934"},"modified":"2021-11-17T08:55:55","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T07:55:55","slug":"vanguards-tordue-police-responsible-for-delay-in-notifying-family-of-his-death-says-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=36934","title":{"rendered":"Vanguard’s Tordue: Police responsible for delay in notifying family of his death, says hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u25aa\ufe0e Tordue Salem: Why we didn\u2019t inform family \u2014 Wuse Hospital<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

Wuse General Hospital has exonerated itself from the delay in notifying the family and the public about the death of Vanguard  reporter, Tordue Henry Salem, whose body is in its morgue.<\/p>\n\n\n

Rather, the hospital asked the public to hold the police responsible as, according to it, the police has the constitutional mandate to inform families of victims arising from accidents, dead or alive.<\/p>\n\n\n

Secretary of Wuse General Hospital, Mrs Hanatu Sani, told Vanguard yesterday that the hospital had no place in law to inform families of dead bodies brought in, saying it was the place of the police.<\/p>\n\n\n

Sani said the non-release of information on Tordue\u2019s death was because of the inability of the policeman that brought the body to follow up.<\/p>\n\n\n

According to her, the police officer failed to show up, even when the hospital\u2019s mortician called to inform him a day after the body of Tordue Salem was brought in that ID cards and other items had been found.<\/p>\n\n\n

While disclosing that there were many unclaimed dead bodies in the hospital\u2019s morgue, Sani explained that the medical centre does not release bodies brought by the police to their families or relatives without authorisation from the police, she said in explaining the constraint of the hospital on the case of Tordue Salem<\/p>\n\n\n

This, she explained, was to avoid trouble \u2018\u2019because you may release a dead body to relatives and another set of relatives would come  up saying the one with the body is a faction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

She said: \u201cIf the police did not come, there was nothing we could have done. We have a lot of unclaimed corpses here in the morgue. Most of them are victims of these hit-and-run drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cThe law says after three months we can bury unclaimed bodies but here,we keep them even up to two years. It\u2019s when after that and we don\u2019t see the relatives that we write to the commissioner of police, the judge and other relevant authorities to bury them.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cThe challenge we had in this case was the policeman that refused to come back after he brought the body. The mortician said he called him the very next day after he found the deceased\u2019s particulars but he refused to come. He was calling him to come and check and see how he can contact the relatives but the policeman never showed up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

On his part, the mortician who admitted to receiving the body on October 13, 2021, said the body came in very late that fateful night.<\/p>\n\n\n

The middle aged man, who only identified himself as Mohammed, said:  \u201cWe registered it (body) as unknown corpse because there was nothing to identify him. It was the next day I found his ID cards and other items.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u2018\u2019It was because of this I placed a call to the policeman to come down but he refused to come after I explained everything to him and he promised to come.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cI saw the items while we were stitching the dismembered body. He brought the body in the night with an FRSC officer in a Road Safety vehicle. But when we were stitching the body, I found items, including the ID cards and immediately called the policeman.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u2018\u2019That first time, he picked my call and we spoke. After informing him of the ID cards and the need to come to pick them so as to inform the relatives, he stopped picking my calls, even  after assuring me that he was coming.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n

On why it took the hospital so many days to disclose the information, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s not our work to look for the relatives, it\u2019s only that of the police.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

On how the body was identified by the Intelligence Response Team, he said:  \u201cWhen the IRT came, they asked whether we had any unclaimed corpse here and I answered that we have many here and they asked again whether we received any body here on October 13.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u2018\u2019When I answered in the affirmative, they now brought the picture of the person they were looking for and the name. I took them inside to see the body brought on the day and the ID cards we found on the body and they confirmed that it was the person they were looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

When informed that the family has distanced itself from the body in the mortuary as that of their son, he responded:  \u201cThat doesn\u2019t concern us, the policeman should come out and clarify the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cThe policeman\u2019s name is Isaiah Olumu from Utako Division. He brought the body in company of an FRSC officer. But while the policeman left his number behind, the Road Safety man didn\u2019t,\u201d he said of the officials who brought the body of Tordue Salem to the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday observed a minute silence for Tordue Salem before the commencement of main legislative proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n

Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, after taking his seat, formally announced Salem\u2019s death to members.<\/p>\n\n\n

He then called a member of the House, Ossai Nicholas Ossai, to offer prayers for the repose of Salem\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n\n\n

Prior to his death, Salem was a journalist covered activities ointhe House for Vanguard newspapers.<\/p>\n\n\n

He went missing on October 13, 2021 and his corpse was  later found in Wuse General Hospital by the police after 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n

Police authorities, however, said the late reporter was killed by a hit-and-run commercial driver identified as Itoro Clement, on the night of his disappearance.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u25aa\ufe0e By Vanguard Newspaper<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u25aa\ufe0e Tordue Salem: Why we didn\u2019t inform family \u2014 Wuse Hospital Wuse General Hospital has exonerated itself from the delay in notifying the family and the public about the death of Vanguard  reporter, Tordue Henry Salem, whose body is in its morgue. Rather, the hospital asked the public to hold the police responsible as, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":36827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[234,4051,4198],"class_list":["post-36934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-police","tag-tordue","tag-wuse-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}