Elections are here again, and like it has been since 2013 when he lost his mother, it is also a period when a dark memory from his past keeps flooding back. Over the years, Olusegun Adewumi, a serving lawmaker and former Deputy Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, has hoped that time will help to reduce the feelings of loss and regret he has, but he has come to realise that time cannot heal all things after all.

Today, Adewumi will be performing his civic duty by casting his votes in the presidential and National Assembly elections but even as he does that, he is sure that the pain of losing his mother prematurely will once again settle upon him, as it has done several times before. Like a tape, he has replayed the events of March 30, 2013 in his head many times, wishing he could turn back the hands of time to change a few things, but each time, he has failed.

Now he knows that like time, wishes can also be useless.

On that fateful day, Adewumi had a close shave when political thugs launched an attack on him at their family house at Erijinyan Ekiti, but his mother, Chief Julianah Adewumi, 76, was not so lucky.

She did not survive the rain of bullets that fell on her. His family friend, Ayo Jeje, died instantly from gunshot injuries he sustained during the attack.

His father, Gabriel Ojo Adewumi, 82, survived the attack but did not survive the heartbreak. He died about two months later, which family members blamed on the shock he had following the death of his dear wife.

The lawmaker, who said his family had not recovered from the traumatising experience, recalled the events that led to the attack, which he described as the height of intolerance.

According to him, the unfortunate incident happened on the eve of his planned defection from one party to another.

Few months after the death of my mother, my father died from the heartbreak and the shock he experienced during the attack. They had been married for over 50 years so we could understand that my father was seriously heartbroken. They had their first child in 1960, so you should know the kind of relationship they had enjoyed during their life.

“People from far and near visited the scene. It was like a war zone; only that it did not occur to them to set the whole building on fire. The house is still there till today with bullet holes in the walls. We deliberately left it that way and only replaced the windows that were shattered,” he said.

According to him, Jeje, his friend, who was about 43 years old, was also killed during the attack.

Adewumi described Jeje as a graduate, who had, in his quest for further studies, just secured admission to study law.

“The matter was reported to the police, who conducted their investigation. The matter was eventually taken to court and some of the culprits ran away, while some were arrested. They were tried for two years or thereabouts,” he said.

Similarly, Dr Sobomabo Dokubo, a media and human resource consultant, from Abonnema, Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, relives recent election periods with all the accompanying trauma of the loss of his son, Iminabo, 30, during the 2015 general elections.

In an encounter with Saturday PUNCH, Dokubo looked up, then down, and up again, before his face finally settled on one of our correspondents’ face, in a manner suggesting that he was hoping that some divine power would bring his lost child back to him.

But after some moments, he sighed as if to say he had once again grudgingly resigned his fate to a superior power.

“I lost my first son in the last general elections; Iminabo Dokubo had three lovely children before he was killed. He was just about 30. He had a Higher National Diploma in computer engineering,” he said.

He continued, “It is so painful to lose a child to such a horrible circumstance, and it is also annoying. Prior to the elections of 2015, I was not in the country, but on the eve of the elections, I returned to Nigeria and went straight to Buguma in Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, where I met my uncles and brothers before some persons came shouting that Iminabo had been shot dead.

Dokubo also recalled an incident that happened in the state about 12 years ago where some people were killed over chieftaincy issues.

“I am pleading with our elders and politicians not to cut short our tomorrow by misguiding our youths because if they live only for today, then our future is doomed. I urge our youths to disassociate themselves from gruesome and horrible politics and engage themselves in beneficial ventures and resist evil,” he said.

Damilola Ogunpate, an IT consultant, lost his father on August 18, 1983, during the crisis that followed the country’s entry into the Second Republic. The National Party of Nigeria’s Shehu Shagari had been declared as the winner of the controversial presidential election at the time, leading to fights between some supporters of the NPN and those of the rival Unity Party of Nigeria.

Ogunpate’s father was an agric extension worker in the old Oyo State and was returning home from work in Ife one day when some suspected political thugs shot him dead, along with some others.

“It was really sad and it affected me a lot. After the experience, coupled with the dead bodies I saw, as I had never seen anything like that before, I was ill for three weeks. It was really traumatic for me. We were in the bush for three hours without seeing a single soul,” he said.

For Kehinde Ojewale, the sad incidents of 2007 general elections are burnt indelibly in her memories as her husband, Tunde, was killed over matters relating to the polls.

Tunde, an indigene of Oba, a town in Olorunda Local Government Area of Osun State, died eight days after Kehinde was delivered of their second child.

According to Kehinde, Tunde became a marked man following the roles he played during the state governorship election held on April 14, 2007. Tunde was killed few weeks after the poll.

On the day he was killed, Kehinde said Tunde was lured out of church and killed with a sword in a secluded place along Osogbo Road.

“Election season always brings back memories of my husband’s death. Since his death, life has not been the same. The baby I had for him eight days before his death died exactly one year after my husband’s death,” Kehinde said tearfully, adding that she could not continue with the interview.

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Source: Punch Metro