Boy, 7 dies locked up inside mother’s car booth in Ilorin

A male child of seven years has been reported dead inside the booth of her mother’s Toyota Corolla car while playing hide and seek game with his sibling at the Government Reservation Area (GRA) Ilorin.

The Nigerian Tribune gathered that the incident happened at about 3pm on a hot Wednesday afternoon.

Sources said that parents of the victim, who were abroad, had before embarking on the trip, made an arrangement with a relation to pick and drop the children to and from school.

“He the (uncle) had on this fateful day dropped the children at home after school. He dropped the car key at the dining table and left for his home. Only for the victim to have allegedly picked up the key, went inside the booth, slammed the door against himself until he was brought out dead.”

“The younger one who is about 2years of age lacked the understanding of the implications of what his senior brother had done. He nevertheless took a search party organised to look for the victim to the car and pointed to the booth babbling. Although the victim was gasping for breath when he was brought out of the booth after about three hours, he was nevertheless confirmed dead on arrival at a nearest hospital,” the source said.

When the news of the death got to the parents who were due in Nigeria next week, they were expectedly shattered but summoned up courage asking closed members of their family in Nigeria to give the victim a befitting burial according to Islamic rites.

Speaking on the incident, the public relations officer of the Kwara state police command, Ajayi Okasanmi, said that the incident had not been officially reported.

But the Acting Director of National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the state, Segun Adeyemi confirmed the incident urging parents with vehicles to keep their car keys from the reach of their children and wards to prevent a recurrence.

Adeyemi said a calamity was averted by his team few days ago. When a mother allegedly left her three children inside her car as she went for shopping in one of the popular shopping malls in Ilorin.

According to him, the three children had accidentally wounded up the glasses of the car as they were shouting for help inside a scorching sun sweating profusely.

The NOA boss added, “We had to force open one of the doors of the car and rescued the children this fateful day. Parents should be more careful so that they will not lose their children this sad way.”