Tragedy struck the Ejila Awori Community High School, Ipitira, in Ado-Odo/Ota local government area of Ogun State, at about 12 noon on Wednesday, April 6, 2015, when thunderstorm struck the school premises, leaving one food vendor dead and five others including a teacher and a pupil seriously injured.
It was gathered from the school Principal, Mr. O.O. Oshiname, that he was having a meeting in his office when a heavy rain started and with it came a series of thunderstorm. “The incident happened last week Wednesday. I was in my office with the executive of the Parent-Teacher-Association. We were having a meeting. While the meeting was on, it began to rain heavily around 11.30am. About 45 minutes after the rain, it began to drizzle. Suddenly, a thunderbolt hit and it was so strong that it threw me off balance.
The school generator was on, but after the thunderbolt, I asked one of the teachers to turn off the generator.” But an hour after the storm, the victims began to regain consciousness but for a 50-year-old fruit vendor identified as Felicia Fagbayi, who did not wake up. But that is not the worry of the family of the deceased woman but the actions of the Sango (god of Thunder) worshippers in the area who are hell bent on collecting the sum of N500,000 so that they can appease the gods of the land. It was learnt that some worshippers of Sango were invited to the scene of the incident by the people of the community and after making some consultations, the Sango devotees were said to have set up a shrine around the site where the victim died and made a demand of N500,000 for materials to perform a ritual.
A community member reported: “The community called in the Sango worshippers and they asked for N500,000. They set up a shrine and forbade people from moving near the place. Their leader said he would need to call his superior. When he came, he gave the community a long list of materials for rituals.”