Encomium
BARING any last minute change of mind by the family of late Mrs. Caroline Kikelomo Oriola, the Lagos House of Assembly matron who died right inside her office on Saturday, August 22, 2015, may be buried on Thursday, September 10, 2015 at Atan Cemetery, Yaba, Lagos.
ENCOMIUM Weekly gathered this from the husband, Dr. Oriola in a chat with us on Saturday, August 29, 2015, at their Sobo Arobiodu, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos residence.
Dr. Oriola, who declined a formal interview with us on the last moment of his wife, however, obliged us information on the burial arrangement.
He said if the Service of Songs is held on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, then, the funeral service and burial will be on Wednesday, September 9, 2015.
But, if on the other hand the Service of Songs is held on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, then the funeral service and burial will be on Thursday, September 10, 2015.
The venue for the Service of Songs and funeral service are also under consideration.
If the management of Lagos House of Assembly permits the family, it may use the Assembly Chapel for the Service of Songs and funeral service.
If not, it will use the family church, Redeemed Christian Church of God, at Ogba, Ikeja, for both the Service of Songs and funeral service.
The family has chosen Atan Cemetery for the burial because of its nearness to Sobo Arobiodu St., GRA, Ikeja, the family residence where reception will likely hold. We gathered that the family chose the residence as the venue for reception because it does not want an elaborate event.
As far as the family is concerned, Mrs. Oriola, 54, was too young to die. Therefore, there is no need for elaborate burial ceremony. As a matter of fact, we gathered that she would have been buried this week if not for the police that asked them to tarry a bit, to allow them complete the coroner.
This also explained why her private car, RAV 4 jeep with registration number KJA 244 BK, parked at the honourable members’ parking lot has not been removed by the family.
The family, we learnt, had made attempt to take the car away on Wednesday, August 26, 2015, but the police told them they should not.
Mrs. Oriola, the matron of the Lagos House of Assembly clinic, had gone on Saturday, August 22, 2015, to drop the drugs she purchased for the clinic, but did not come out alive.
Her dead body was not discovered until the following Monday, August 24, 2015, by the cleaner who had to go to the clinic to clean it up.
She was found slumped behind her table in the clinic with the air conditioning working.
When she did not come home on Saturday, August 22, her husband called her number but it was not picked. He came to the Assembly but did not see her car.
ENCOMIUM Weekly gathered that though Mrs. Oriola was seriously sick between October and November 2014, which warranted her staying off work for those periods, she was back in office in December 2014, full of life.
Since resuming work that December 2014, she has not shown any sign of illness.
As a matter of fact, Thursday, August 20, 2015, two days before her demise, she did two things that gave no impression that she was about to die.
First, she went to lay the foundation of her house at the LAHA Cooperative Land Scheme, somewhere in Mowe, Ogun State.
Second, she gave an intern with the House of Assembly whose mother is a caterer N50,000 as an advance payment for food in preparation for her 55th birthday in October 2015.
On Friday, August 21, 2015, a day before her death, she was in office decked in an all white attire that attracted complements from colleagues and friends that came her way that day.
Mrs. Oriola, a mother of four children, had been working in the House of Assembly clinic since 2005 as a senior staff nurse.
She became the matron early 2014, when the former matron, Mrs. Taylor retired.
-TOLANI ABATTI
