He died of cardiac arrest, says President
The apparently pensive President opened up that the deceased died of cardiac arrest and inflamed heart.
Jonathan said arrangements were being made to fly his brother out of the country for medical treatment before he died on November 20. While describing Meni’s sudden demise as painful and sad, Jonathan prayed God to give their family the fortitude to bear the loss, even as he expressed appreciation to Nigerians that gathered in his community for the funeral of his brother.
Among the dignitaries that graced the burial ceremony were the governors of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson; Rivers, Chibuike Amaechi; Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio; Delta, Emmanuel Uduaghan; Abia, Theodore Orji; Ebonyi, Martin Elechi and Anambra, Peter Obi. Many ministers were also present.
Others at the burial include Senate President, David Mark; Speaker House Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal; Chief Tony Anenih; businessmen, Aliko Dangote, Jim Ovia, Tony Elumelu, Arthur Eze, ace footballer, Kanu Nwankwo, and some women groups. The northern and South-West governors were conspicuously absent at the burial events.
While the burial lasted, however, security was beefed up by soldiers, policemen and other paramilitary organisations at the Saint Stephen’s Anglican Church, where a commendation service was held in honour of Meni ,who is survived by two wives and nine children.
Eldest son of the deceased, Lamawal , read the only lesson of the service.
Bishop of Ogbia Diocese, Anglican Communion, Rt.Revd. James Oruwori, presided over the funeral service that lasted for about an hour.
Oruwori in his sermon, said there was life after death, noting that death was a way of passing from one phase to the other.
The clergyman regretted that the death of Meni was very disturbing ,believing that there was judgment after death.
President Jonathan, in his remarks, said,”I thank all of you on behalf of the family for the show of concern, sympathy since I lost my younger brother. It was a bad day because it coincided with my birthday. I always know that people will surely die; I always believe that people will live to an age while they make their names.
Some persons die before they were born, there are a lot of still births… He has his two sons fairly grown up, those, at least will be with us.”
Jonathan ,who was clad in black jumper and accompanied by his wife, Patience and Mother, Eunice at the commendation service, said what worried him most was the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death.
His words: “The circumstances of his death sometimes worry me. What worries me is that he died so suddenly. This was a young man I came home on a Friday, he came to my house ,nobody carried him, he moved down just from his house across the road. We discussed, he was a bit frail. I said ‘follow us so that he can do medical check-up. He himself drove down to Yenagoa to board the chopper to Abuja.
“He got to Abuja that Saturday, so he was admitted in the hospital. The following Monday, his breathing changed. I said ‘let us make arrangement to get him out to let him get treatment outside.’ So an arrangement was being done, unfortunately, the following thing is that he had cardiac arrest an inflamed heart at the State House clinic. We were making arrangement to move him to National Hospital. It is a very sad thing; he had been covering the home front for us. He had been a very humble person.”
“Meni was a reliable and trustworthy person that you can ask to handle things for you. He is dead ,there is nothing we can do. I must thank all of you who have come to join the Jonathan family to give us this respect. In some traditions, I’m not supposed to be in church. It is tradition that you don’t bury your younger ones. Luckily for this community, we don’t have too many of these cultural and traditional things. It is quite sad ,it pulled the whole Nigerians to the community to bury my younger brother,” a visibly shaken President Jonathan lamented.
National Mirror
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