Tears after undergraduate, 18, drowns swimming in river

It was tears galore when an 18-year-old Applied Chemistry student of Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto, Abdulyasar Aminu, drowned while swimming with friends last Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at the Kwalkwalawa River. The unfortunate incident happened at a time students were preparing for examinations.
The deceased, an indigene of Kano State from Tarauni local government was in 200 levels and lived off-campus.
According to a witness, students were regular visitors to the spot where they usually converged to swim whenever the weather is hot. “On Monday, at about 2:00pm, [the students] came in a group of about 10 students, and while swimming, late Abdulyasar went deeper into the river against his friends’ advice, and all of a sudden started struggling, eventually going underneath,” he said.
Daily Trust learnt that one of Abdulyasar’s friends tried to save him but failed.
The university authorities were informed, and they organized a search party in collaboration with fishermen at Kwalkwalawa village, who found his body around 8:00am on Wednesday, 6th April, 2016. An ambulance was made available, which conveyed the corpse to Abdulyasar’s hometown in Kano for burial.
A fisherman, Mohammed Sagir, 40, who led the team, said the exact location where the student drowned was not known to them initially, which made them postpone the search until the following day. “We spent over an hour before we eventually saw the corpse and used a net to drag it out of the water,” he said, adding that the lifeless body was intact but with fungi-like particles covering it.
 Dean of Student Affairs, Professor Adamu A. Aliero, confirmed the incident and added the matter was still under investigation. “His parents were contacted and they requested that we take the body to them, which we have done,” he stated, adding that this was the first time they have recorded such an incident.
The Dean described the water in which the deceased drowned as muddy and unhygienic, and cautioned others against swimming in it.