A father identified as Mr Alex Ajissi has
abandoned his 3 year old daughter, Ozillia Alex-
Ajissi, who got severely burnt in a kerosene
explosion that claimed the life of her mother
and brother at the University of Calabar
Teaching Hospital (UCTH)
A Good Samaritan, Mrs. Theresa Etido-Umoren
made her situation public after she noticed her
while visiting her relation in the Intensive Care
Unit of the UCTH.
Her outcry attracted the attention of members
of the Calabar-Municipal branch of the National
Association of Seadogs (NAS), which
intervened with a donation of N20, 000 and a
follow up of another N50, 000 yesterday.
According to Mrs Etido-Umoren, the little girl's
dad who is from Benin Republic stopped visiting
the girl since two months. She urged members
of the public to support the victim in order to
complete the remaining surgeries.
Etido-Umoren said,
“I noticed her when I went to the ICU to
visit my cousin who later died. I noticed
this little girl, Ozillia, and I made inquiries
about her. In the course of my inquiries I
found out that nobody was caring for
her. The hospital staff had taken her like
their project. I had to go and see the
head of Anaesthesia department and told
her what I could do and they gave the
go-ahead. The staff at the Anaesthesia
department had taken up the
responsibility of caring for her when they
discovered that her father had stopped
coming to see her. The child had been in
the hospital for about two months
without the father. The child’s mother
and brother had died in the fire incident.
So, I had to reach out to people and the
first donation came from Seadogs. From
what I understand, the father is from
Benin Republic and the mother was from
Akwa Ibom State but they were not
legally married before this incident. In
addition to the grief of losing his family,
he was made to marry the corpse of the
mother before the burial.”
The Head of Department of Anaesthesia, Prof.
Stella Eguma, who manages the ICU, said the
three-year-old girl had just undergone her first
major surgery.
She said,
“We have been taking care of her for
some time now, while public spirited
human beings like you have just stepped
in now. She just had the first surgery.
She will need a lot of grafting because
the skin was not enough. It is going to
be a long recovery process and we are
happy that she is responding.”
According to the President of the Calabar
Municipal branch of NAS, Mr. John Nya, they
felt touched by the development and had to
intervene immediately.
“This matter was brought to our
attention just three days ago and we
instantly swung into action by sending in
N20, 000 through the lady that brought
up the matter. We have again brought
another N50, 000 and it will not stop
there. In fact, in the next two days we
would have given N100, 000 for a start.
The situation of this little Ozillia is very
traumatic. We will drum support for her
treatment. It is a worthy cause. We, as
an organization, have always identified
with the less privileged and we will
continue to do that within our
resources,” he said.
