Sanni Hameedat, a 20-year-old University of Ilorin student, is said to have killed herself after lending N500,000 to a boy she met on the social media app Snapchat.
In a statement made available to PUNCH Online on Wednesday, the private hostel management Rubiks said that Hameedat was enrolled in her SIWES curriculum when the event occurred.
The management claimed that the pressure from the app agents, who demanded quick payback, together with her brother’s failure to provide her with financial support, which caused depression, were two factors that contributed to her death.
“Financial misappropriation was found to be the reason of the suicide. Her mother had given her a considerable amount of money. On Snapchat, she met a guy with whom she later became friends.
“When the child stated that his mother had breast cancer and desperately needed N500,000, the kind and sympathetic woman made the decision to assist him by financing him N500,000—half of the N1 million she had set up for her own mother. The child also pledged to pay back the money he had borrowed.
“However, the boy quickly cut off all contact when her mother demanded the money back, blocking her. She was greatly upset by this and turned to borrowing money from several applications to make up the lost N500,000.
Hameedat was able to collect N450,000 from the loan applications and combine it with her N50,000 in savings to cover the N500,000 she had to borrow.
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The management also claimed that she had reportedly consumed a bottle of the popular pesticide Sniper the night before, and that her flatmate (name withheld), who had gone to bed early, awoke in the middle of the night to find her in distress and vomiting and foaming at the mouth.
The statement concluded, “Alarmed, the flatmate sought assistance, and she was rushed to UITH before being declared dead.”
While this was going on, terse messages were sent to the institution’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Kunle Akogun, and the Dean of Student Affairs Unit, Prof. M.T. Yakubu, who both claimed to be participating in the 37th and 38th combined convocation ceremony that began on Monday, October 16, 2023.
However, when our correspondent spoke with Ologundudu Adesunkanmi, also known as Royal Prince, the President of the Student Union, he confirmed the occurrence and corroborated the hostel management’s account of what happened.
“The Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Student Affairs are fully aware of the issue, and they have reported to the appropriate authority to start a thorough investigation into the matter,” he stated. It is regrettable that she left the academic community in such a tragic way.
Details to come…
