Barely few weeks after two corps members died in Kano and Zamfara states, another tragedy was averted at the orientation camp of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Ede, in Osun State, on Monday, when another corps member slumped.
The incident was said to have occurred when the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, was addressing the corps members at the camp.
Oba Ogunwusi, who mourned Ifedolapo Oladepo, an Osun indigene corps member who recently died in Kano and two other corps members, had barely finished his address centred on ‘Skills acquisition and entrepreneur development’ when the female corps member collapsed.
Nigerian Tribune reliably gathered that she was immediately rushed to the camp clinic, where medical personnel struggled to resuscitate her after administering some drugs.
An official of the NYSC in Ede and a member of the Red Cross Society informed journalists that the female corps member, who slumped probably due to exhaustion, had been treated and discharged by medical personnel at the camp clinic.
Earlier in his address, Ooni hinted that his daughter was one of the corps members deployed to Abuja for the NYSC one year service, saying that “I made up my mind that I would be an entrepreneur. I was selling rice and sugar. At the age of 19, I fathered a child, which made the matter more complicated. Life was very tough because I had to cater for my child, but that made me to work harder.
“Today, I am proud to say that she is one of the present batch deployed to Abuja. That experience shaped my life and made me to keep starving. I started going to Benue to bring yam tubers, which I turned to yam powder. I want to encourage you today, whatever you are selling or doing, do it with zeal.
“I met Aliko Dangote, Dr Deji Adeleke and other successful Nigerians inside the market where I was selling foodstuffs. I used my background to redefine the way I was selling the foodstuffs,” Oba Ogunwusi asserted, just as he admonished the corps members not to be disappointed in the leadership of the country.
The coordinator of NYSC in Osun, Mrs Regina Iluebbe, organised the skill acquisition programme, with a view to tackling unemployment in Nigeria.