Samuel Adegoke, a student of the Federal Polytechnic, llaro, Ogun State reportedly committed suicide after losing his school fees to sports betting.
The 22-year-old who was a National Diploma II student of Electrical Electronic Engineering, died on the day he was supposed to sit for his last semester exam.
The deceased had two roommates, Jacob Israel and Mustapha Olaniyi, squatting with him in his apartment outside the school premises.
Narrating what lead to Samuel’s death to journalists on Saturday, his friend Israel said, “What happened was that in the morning of the incident, we were coming from a night class. I received an alert my daddy, sent to me as my school fees; N100,000. It was around 5:43am. Samuel (Adegoke), being my close friend, I showed him, because he told me that his dad sent his own since but I was not aware.
“We went home together. I slept in the room, he went to the other room because we were living in a two-room apartment. Later, he came back to the room, woke me up and asked me to give him my phone. I gave him the phone because he was my close friend. He withdrew N100,000 from my account because he knew my PIN. Because he was my best friend, I opened up to him.
“I did not know that he had withdrawn money from my account. After some hours, I told him I wanted to go to school to pay my school fees and asked we should go together. As we were going to the school, he was still with my phone. When we got to the school market, I asked for my phone; that was when he told me that he had used my money for betting.
“I collected my phone and confirmed that he had withdrawn N100,000 from my account and I saw it that he used it to play sport betting. He was having an exam that day; I did not have any that day. He went for the exam without paying the school fees. Later, he called me that they sent him out of the exam hall because of the school fees; I was at home when he called me. When he got back home, he met me and Olaniyi, and explained what happened to Olaniyi.
“I was advised to call his parents and tell them, or I should go to the DSA office to report; I knew the implication. I said I would give him more time.
“I later called his parents and told them what happened. I called his mum, who said she could not afford it. His mum advised me to sell his clothes and phone to recoup my money.
I made the call outside, not in his presence. I went back inside and told him I had called his parents. He begged me to call his mum back and tell her not to tell his dad and when I called his mum back, she did not answer my call.
“After a while, he went out. We didn’t know where he went to; after some minutes, we looked for him and met him on the way where we used to buy medicine. I then asked him if he had found a solution; he did not answer me. He just left me and went inside the room.
“We did not see anything on him; we did not know he had bought an insecticide from a woman. So, after some minutes, like 20 minutes later, one of our neighbours called us that someone was crying inside. We quickly rushed into the house to check on him. I found him on the floor vomiting foam in his mouth and nostrils.
“The person we got the apartment from was around, so I quickly rushed to call the man that Samuel was vomiting foam. The man rushed and gave him palm oil, maybe that one will stop it.
“The man told me to look for a bike to take him to a hospital. We took him to the school clinic, but the clinic could not attend to him because his condition was critical, so we had to take him out of the school clinic to another hospital. Getting to Hosanna Hospital, he was admitted and treated but he could not make it. He was pronounced dead.
“I was not expecting that to happen. He was a very wonderful person; he was like a brother to me. I don’t even know that he could use my money for betting,” Israel added.
The rector expressed concern over the lack of communication about the student’s previous gambling activities and urged parents to promptly report such incidents to the institution.
He explained that the deceased’s father said he could not take his son’s body back home, urging the school management to bury him.
