KWASU final year student commits suicide

A 400-level student at the Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, Rashidat Shittu, has reportedly committed suicide over her academic status.

The incident, our correspondent gathered, occurred weekend when the student, a 20-year-old final year student of Department of Accounting, reportedly drank a bottle of pesticide known as Sniper.

According to her colleagues who confided in our correspondent on Saturday, Shittu committed suicide ahead of her upcoming exams because she was having some academic issues.

“When she started feeling pains, she informed her friends and hostel mates that she used the poisonous substance,” one of the students said.

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Shittu was said to have been pronounced dead on arrival at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH).

It was gathered that she was first rushed to the school clinic from where she was referred to the UITH.

A staff member, who was part of the medical team that attended to her at UITH, told Daily Trust that she was brought in dead.

“Her colleagues said she was having issues with her academic status in school. She later informed her colleagues while she was writhing in pain that she had drunk sniper. When they contacted her mother, she instructed them not to take her to the school clinic.

“But that was where she was rushed to at last when her situation got worse before she was referred to the UITH,” she said.

A resident who witnessed her janazah at the Muslim cemetery, Osere, Ilorin, told our correspondent that the deceased was buried at the facility by family members and staff of the students’ affairs unit of KWASU.

“Her father was present at the janazah but couldn’t even observe it with us. He was dejected and sorrowful”, she added.

KWASU Director of University Relations, Mrs Saeedat Aliyu, said she would find out and get back to our correspondent.

“I haven’t been able to reach the officer in charge. I’ll revert as soon as I do,” she wrote in a text message to our correspondent on Saturday afternoon.