Date Published: 07/19/11

Ministerial Nominee commits suicide, jumps into Lagos Lagoon

Lagosians watched in wonder and consternation yesterday evening at the Leventis bus stop in Marina, Lagos, when a ministerial nominee, Mr. Al-Mustaim Alade Abaniwonda, aged 56, dived into the lagoon under mysterious circumstances about 3pm. He eventually drowned in the lagoon.

Abaniwonda was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senatorial candidate for Lagos East in the April 9, 2011 National Assembly election. According to Abaniwonda’s driver, simply identified as Wasiu, the senatorial candidate, who lost to the incumbent Senator Tunde Ashafa of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and whose name was among the list of 10 nominees sent to President Goodluck Jonathan for consideration as minister from Lagos State, was coming from a bank on Lagos Island when he told the driver that he was pressed and would need to use the toilet.

Wasiu said: “He ate his food after we left the bank and he told me he was going to use a toilet down there. That was all until I heard people shouting. He was still struggling to get out when I got there but he later went down inside the water.” Wasiu was promptly arrested by police officers attached to the Marine Police Division at whose backyard the incident took place.

Nigerianpoliticsonline gathered that when the politician jumped into the river, he was still able to stand upright but he deliberately walked into a deeper portion of the lagoon. A toilet operator, said: “We didn’t know what happened in the vehicle before he came down. But when he got to us, he told us he wanted to use our toilet. We were still looking for the key and water when he walked towards the river.

“He took off his jacket, wristwatch, wallet and made for the lagoon side. We were even telling him that is not the toilet, he insisted on going towards other direction. We called him again and he answered in Yoruba saying: Ani mo fe se gaa, meaning, “I want to defecate”. All of a sudden we just saw him in the lagoon.

The Epe-born politician, was a senatorial candidate for Lagos East under the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the ACN before crossing over to the PDP in 2003 after he sought to contest the senatorial district’s ticket on ACN’s platform but was asked to step down for the eventual winner of the ticket, Hon. Olorunnibe Mamora, Abaniwonda holds a first degree from the University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife).

He is the founder and managing partner of Alade Abaniwonda & Partners, an investment company, with offices at the CSS Bookshop building, Broad Street, Lagos.

Courtesy Nigeriapoliticsonline