One dies, 6 hospitalised after cassava meal in Plateau •Man dies after falling from train

A family of seven, simply identified as Atang, in Jos East Local Government Area of Plateau State, has been hospitalised with one dead, after eating cassava for breakfast.

A source close to the family told Sunday Tribune that the family comprising a 67-year-old man and six others, suddenly fell ill and complained of chronic stomach ache after the meal at about 10:00 a.m., adding that they were taken to Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) by neighbours who heard about  their predicament.

It was gathered that the youngest, a three-year-old girl, died on arrival at the hospital, while the other family members were placed under observation and were yet to fully recover as at the time of filing this report.

Some of the  family members who spoke with Sunday Tribune at the hospital said they rushed into cooking the cassava due to hunger, adding that the variety they ate contained some substances that needed to be extracted before they could be boiled and eaten.

When Sunday Tribune visited JUTH, the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Mrs Ngozi Oparah, was not on ground while medical personnel attending to the victims were not willing to comment on the issue.

In another development, an unidentified man, suspected to be a beggar, fell off the top of a moving Kano-bound train in Ilorin, Kwara State.

According to a female  eyewitness, who boarded the train from Lagos, it was noticed that the one-handed man, kept moving in and out of the train, apparently to evade officials who were checking tickets.

“I am surprised to see him dead, here in Ilorin, but I suspect that he went out of the station due to the delay and when he saw the train moving, he ran to join and fell off,” the witness said.

Speaking on the development, the Ilorin station manager, Mr Godwin, said: “I received a call from the level crossing keeper, telling me that somebody fell from the roof of the train and I rushed there in company of the station’s Divisional Police Officer, DPO, to see what the situation was. He is actually an Almajiri, a one-handed man, who had no ticket.

“The unfortunate thing is that despite repeated announcements in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba that no one should hang on the train, someone still took the risk. He had no ticket; the corporation cannot be held liable for his suicide act. The corpse has been taken to a mortuary,” he said.