Sanni Hameedat, a 20-year-old University of Ilorin student, reportedly killed herself after lending a boy she met on the social media app Snapchat the sum of N500,000.
Hameedat was enrolled in her SIWES program when the incident occurred, according to Rubiks, the private hostel management where she resided before her death, in a statement made available to PUNCH Online on Wednesday.
The management claimed that the pressure from the app agents, who demanded quick repayment, along with her brother’s inability to provide her with financial support, which caused depression, were two factors that contributed to her death.
“Financial misappropriation was found to be the suicide’s cause. She had been given a large amount of money by her mother. On Snapchat, she ran into a guy with whom she struck up a friendship.
“The kind and sympathetic woman made the decision to assist the boy by lending him N500,000 out of the N1 million she had set aside for her mother after hearing the boy’s claim that his mother was fighting breast cancer and desperately needed N500,000. The boy also pledged to pay back the money he had borrowed.
“However, the boy abruptly cut off all contact with her when her mother demanded the money back, blocking her. As a result, she became very distressed and turned to borrowing money from various apps to make up the missing N500,000. “
Hameedat was thus able to collect N450,000 from the loan applications and combine it with her N50,000 in savings to cover the N500,000 she had borrowed.
The management also claimed that she had reportedly consumed a bottle of the popular pesticide Sniper the previous evening, and that her roommate (name withheld), who had gone to bed early, awoke in the middle of the night to find her in distress and vomiting and foaming at the mouth.
The statement stated, “Alarmed, the roommate sought assistance, and she was rushed to UITH before being declared dead.”
Both the Dean and Professor M.T are in the meantime. Yakubu and Kunle Akogun, the institution’s head of corporate affairs, declined requests for comment in terse messages because they both claimed to be attending the 37th and 38th combined convocation ceremony, which began on Monday, October 16, 2023.
Ologundudu Adesunkanmi, a.k.a. Royal Prince, the president of the student union, confirmed the incident when our correspondent spoke with him, corroborating the hostel management’s account of what happened.
He declared, “The Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Student Affairs are very much aware of the issue, and they have reported to the appropriate authority to start a thorough investigation into the matter. It is regrettable that she left the university community in such a tragic way. “
Detail to follow.
