As Mallo stepped into her compound, few meters away from a tree, a gentle breeze caressing the tree caused one of its branches to give away, landing on her head. As the branch of the tree weighed her down, Mallo gasped for help before she gave up the ghost.
But while Ezekiel, is insising that the tree which killed her wife should be felled, his caretaker says it is best to sell the tree.
The tree was said to have grown naturally on that part of the land at Mararaba, Nasarawa State near Abuja, the nation’s capital before the people moved in and settled there. It is directly situated near a major passage on an undeveloped plot of land close to the residence of the Mallos. Ezekiel spoke to Daily Sun:
“I was told that the tree fell and dust filled everywhere. Nobody noticed that someone was under it. It was later on when the dust disappeared that they saw her body and shouted, then took her to a nearby hospital. She reached the hospital alive before she died. I met her, but she could not talk to me before she died.”
“Initially, I told the owners of the tree that I want to cut it down but the caretaker said he wants to sell the tree. Someone came and priced it at N5000.
But he insisted that he wants to sell it for N20,000. Since then the tree has remained there. That’s why I stopped talking.”
Ezekiel, who is popularly known in the area as Easy Photos, in view of his proficiency photography sat on a long bench at the back of his house with other members of his household when Daily Sun called: “It is God’s plan. We cannot say it’s the devils doing because God says in everything we should give thanks to him. I was not around when it happened. What happened was that the tree just fell like that, no sign, nothing. That’s why I’m a believer. I don’t believe in all those fetish things people are saying about the tree. If God said her time was not, she wouldn’t have come back home at that time,” he posited.
Ezekiel, an indigene of Ancho, Andaha District of Akwanga Local Government Area in Nasarawa State, confirmed:
“Since the big tree is directly in front of our house, usually, everyone would pass under it from either way to get access into the compound. That is where we often pass through and so did my wife on that black Thursday evening when, unfortunately, the tree could no longer carry the branch but collapsed it directly on her.
“I approached the Caretaker the following day to say, do you like what happened? It was after we met him that he came. When he came, he claimed that he had been trying to reach the owner of the plot on phone but that his lines were not going through. He claimed that he was not in town, that he travelled abroad.”
Ezekiel told Daily Sun that they had reported the matter to the authorities of the Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. The officials had sent a delegation from the environmental office to inspect the scene and see the controversial tree with a view to issuing an immediate order to fell it to prevent a reoccurrence.
He said he could not report the matter to the police in Mararaba as he was not interested in making any case. He told Daily Sun that the damages caused the family by the incident would inflict serious pains on them in view of the contributions of the late wife to their welfare. Ezekiel is, however, not interested in compensation for damages.
Daily Sun Friday February 2010
Page 5
From UBONG UKPONG, Abuja
