The last days' Senator Abiola Ajimobi, who died on Thursday at First Cardiology Hospital in Lagos following Coronavirus complications, were devoid of peace as he was defrauded of N50million right on his sickbed.
Recall that Ajimobi was rushed to the hospital weeks ago after his health deteriorated significantly and soon slipped into a deep coma he never recovered from until he passed away on Thursday.
The doctors were battling to save his life at the Lagos hospital during his illness, family members are desperate to keep him alive reached out to a some of Nigerians they knew abroad to help get the quantity of Remivir to be administered on him.
The drug was manufactured in Bangladesh, the antiviral drug was previously tested in humans with Ebola virus disease and has shown promise in treating severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by Coronavirus, according to United States National Institutes of Health.
First, the task for the search for the drug was given to a Nigerian in Texas, United States, to see if he could help get it.
After days of contacting several trusted persons for the ‘project’, he gave up the search as the tight monitoring of the drug by the US government made it almost impossible for it to be moved out of hospitals.
The $50,000 paid was refunded after another search for the drug in a hospital in Los Angeles, California, did not yield.
The hospitals contacted had an only limited dose of the drugs, which is closely controlled by the US governments desperate to stop the rising number of deaths related to Coronavirus in the country.The United States has 2.5 million Coronavirus cases and 126,785 reported deaths in the country.
After failing to get the drug in the US, members of Ajimobi circle turned attention to Bangladesh where it is being manufactured.
A Nigerian in Bangladesh guaranteed them of getting the needed dose of Remivir to administer on Ajumobi and help save his life.
Thereafter, a jet and N50m was sent to the Asian country for the purchase and delivery but unfortunately, the drugs procured by the Nigerian man was all fake.
He took a large sum of the money and left Ajumobi to battle for his life at the Lagos hospital where for at least one week he was on a life support machine before he finally died.
A close family member said “All our guys here in the United States couldn’t risk it because of the war act invoked by President Donald Trump that the drug should not get out of America.
“It is something I was involved in from the beginning. In fact, we gave $50,000 to one of our Nigerian guy who is a doctor in Los Angeles but he returned the money. He said the hospital had only 100 doses and everything was monitored on how it is used.
“But one Nigerian guy defrauded them after claiming he could get it in Bangladesh.
“They sent a flight and paid about N50m but the drug they got from him was fake,” one of those privies to the search for the drugs, he said.
It was gathered that the disappointment from that development further added to the pain of those close to the former governor, who passed away at the age of 70 on Thursday.