Family At War With Tantalizer Over Breadwinner's Death

Bose Ayeni led Tantalizer is currently enmeshed the death of a 62-year-old Andrew Adebisi, who was walking home from his place of work around 11am on May 6, 2013, when he was allegedly knocked down by the driver of a Toyota Dyna van belonging to Tantalizers Plc.

The man reportedly died while he was being rushed to the Igando General Hospital. A doctor’s report from the hospital stated that Adebisi was ‘brought in dead by a young driver who claimed that he hit the man.’

The victim’s son, Adewale, said he got a call around 12 pm that day that he should rush down to the hospital. “I met my father’s corpse on a stretcher in the hospital,”  he said.

Adebisi was said to be crossing the Igando-Isheri Road at the time of the accident.

“We learnt that my father ran and jumped on the culvert that separated the two lanes of the road but the driver lost control and hit him on the culvert,”  the deceased’s son said.

According to the doctor’s report signed by one Dr Olaniyan of the Alimosho General Hospital, Igando, the driver, Seyi Olushi, said when he hit Adebisi, the deceased fell into the flower shrubs on the culvert.

The police report on the case stated that the family of the deceased agreed to take the corpse of the deceased away for burial.

However, the family claimed that though Tantalizers have promised to compensate the family for the death of their breadwinner, it had not done so.

In a statement of claim filed before a Lagos high court sitting in Ikeja, Adewale said that the driver killed his father while driving dangerously and recklessly.

The court document joined Tantalizers and Olushi as the first and second defendants respectively.

The deposition states in part, “owing to the gravity of the injury my father sustained, he died on the spot.”

“It was drizzling that day and Olushi ought not to have been moving at such a great speed under such weather and in a busy city road.

“The first defendant (Tantalizers) is vicariously liable for the said act, omission, neglect, and recklessness of the second defendant (Olushi), which occurred in the course of his duty and which has resulted in the death of the deceased.”

According to Adebisi’s family, he was their breadwinner who made at least N150,000 monthly in his lifetime. His widow is said to be a housewife who fully depend on her husband for the upkeep of the home.

Findings revealed that the court option was chosen because Tantalizers had done nothing to compensate the family even though some of the company’s officials had visited the family to ask what they would be willing to accept as compensation.

A letter of condolence signed by the Tantalizer’s Human Resources Manager, Yomi Liopo, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent, stated, “On behalf of the management and the entire Tantalizers family, I wish to express my profound sympathy for the death of your father in a motor accident caused by one of our company’s drivers.”

The company also requested the deceased’s death certificate in a letter dated September 17, 2013, which the family said had been sent. The family said the company was ye to give them money as a form of compensation.

The family wants the court to hold the company responsible for the ‘wrongful death’ of Adebisi.

“But two weeks after our visit, the deceased’s son sent two account s numbers to us and said we should pay the money into either one of them when we were ready to pay. I informed his uncle about this and he said if that was what the deceased’s son wanted, then he was in support of it.

“We relayed this information to our insurance officer and he said in order to do a proper documentation, the family should provide the death certificate since we had already got the police report ourselves.”

The family said that the hospital where the deceased was taken to did not want to issue a death certificate since he was “brought in dead.”

Liopo said the family brought a death certificate issued by another hospital later but the insurance officer insisted that the certificate must come from the right source.

“What we saw next were court documents, which we were not forced to refer to our legal department. As you can see, we have not been running away from the family.”

The company lawyer also explained that the court was awaiting a mediation date from the court.

The legal officer said, “At this stage, we did not expect that they would be making insinuation that we have not reached out to them,

“They have filed their statement of claims and we have filed out statement of defence. What remains is court mediation. It is only when the mediation process breaks down that the court would refer the case for trial.”