Following the 5 year jail term meted out on actress
and Actors Guild President ,Ibinabo Fiberesima, an eyewitness claims to
have been there on the night the fatal accident which killed the doctor
.He gives a different account than what has been circulating in the
media ..In his account told to movie director, Charles Novia, he claims
Ibinabo did not flee from the accident scene as stated, he said he
actually saved her ..Read below as published on Charles Novisa’s website
Nollywood has been in a state of understandable inertia
since the news came out of the blues that Ibinabo Fiberesima lost her
case at the Appeal Court in Lagos and was sent straight to Prison on
Friday the 11th of March 2016.
A lot of people thought that the case was done with
long ago and we were surprised that it had cropped up again with the
implications of a five year jail term for Ibinabo.
And the reactions thus far have not been in anyway
hostile to the Court’s judgement. Not at all. The industry is
enlightened enough to bow to the ruling of the law and respect it as it
behoves on everyone. The collective shock expressed is because Ibinabo
is a beautiful soul. She’s one of us. And one for all and all for one.
With opinions divided in the public sphere over the
judgement, it has been saddening to read uninformed comments by lots of
people about the case and some vitriol on the person of Ibinabo by many
who don’t even know her. Of course, everyone would have an opinion and
that cannot be taken from anyone. But such terms which ring of untruths
that ‘she was drunk that night and coming from a night club’ or ‘she
killed someone’ are absolutely untrue. It’s quite sad that we have no
investigative journalists anymore or that truth these days battle with
coloured lies and no one does anything about it.
In the past few days, Nollywood and Entertainment
chat groups on whatsapp ( and there are many but credible ones I belong
to) have been brainstorming on what next to do in this case. The law is
the law and of course it is a possibility that Ibinabo would be behind
bars for some time while everyone make efforts to take the next legal
options to help her. But the entertainment industry has never been this
united in showing sympathy and solidarity for one of us.unprecedented.
And so with chat groups proferring ideas on what to do next ( with high
profile celebrity visits already carried out to Kirikiri to reassure
Ibinabo by over fifty celebrities on Sunday the 13th of March) someone
sent a munched shot of the instagram page of the daughter of the late
Doctor Giwa who was reacting to Ibinabo’s son’s public plea for prayers
for his mother.
The munched shot showed that the daughter was
understandably bitter and pained by her father’s death but to many who
read it in the chat group, it betrayed a lack of the real facts and had a
one – sided narrative which accused Ibinabo of ‘being drunk from a
night club outing’ and ‘running away from the scene of the accident’
after it happened. I also read the open letter of the sister of late
Doctor who understandably gave an emotionally – charged one-sided
narrative of what she believes happened and ended her letter by
applauding the Justice system for vindicating her understandable anger
towards Ibinabo for the past eleven years.
There’s a saying in Pidgin English which says ‘na
talk dey bring talk’ and what happened thereafter this week is the stuff
movies are made of. No pun intended. It was totally unexpected.
One of the most important personalities in
Nollywood in the chat group, obviously distressed at the wrong notion
about Ibinabo by the deceased daughter blurted out that ‘you know, Guys?
There are facts of the case which I know and which haven’t come to
light all these years. My brother was an eye witness and saw all what
happened that night’
The
reaction was one of stunned questions. And immediately, I made the
decision to interview the eye witness to find out what he really saw and
what it was that happened which the public may not have heard these
years. I decided to do this as a public service responsibility first and
also to put whatever the new facts are in the public domain for
posterity to prove or dispel. And if these new revelations would help
heal wounds and bring about a new dawn of forgiveness and understanding,
then so be it.
I got the number of the eye witness from his sister
in the chat room and called him. Now, let me state here that this is no
fiction. This fellow is real and is willing to expose himself to the
public anytime to state what he saw. I have decided not to put his
surname out ( even though he says he doesn’t mind) at this point in time
but that doesn’t detract from the real facts of this story.
‘Good afternoon, Mr De Gaulle. Your sister gave me
your number to call you to find out what happened that night. My name is
Charles Novia’ I said, when he answered, my pen and recorder ready.
‘Oh ok. Yes, she told me you would call. My name is De
Gaulle ( surname protected by me) You see, I’m ready to come out to
testify or say whatever happened that night of the accident because it
happened in my presence. I witnessed it and saw everything. We were many
who saw what happened that evening and I assumed that others might have
told the world what really went down but I’m surprised to read so many
untrue things about what happened at the scene of the accident that
evening’ He said.
‘Please go ahead, Sir. I’m taking notes and recording’ I said
‘ Ok. I saw Ibinabo a few years ago ( about six
years ago) in Port Harcourt at a restaurant called Gessy ( or Jessy?).
She was with some of your colleagues and my sister was there too. I told
my sister that ‘Hey! That’s that girl whom I helped at the scene of the
accident years ago’. My sister was surprised and called Ibinabo to meet
me. And when I told her what I’m about to tell you, she was surprised
and quiet for a long time.
That evening, what happened was that the Doctor’s car
was coming from the Victoria Island axis of the first Lekki Roundabout
which leads into the Lekki Phase One Estate, while another SUV which was
being driven by Ibinabo was coming out from the estate, if I remember
correctly. I cannot tell who was speeding or what but we heard a loud
crash and then I think the doctors car somersaulted while the other car
driven by Ibinabo was flung a few metres to the other side.
‘Was it midnight or late at night?’ I asked
‘No!’ Mr De Gaulle replied with much emphasis. ‘ It
was early evening. There was still the last trace of evening light. It
might have been just before seven o’clock or after seven. But it wasn’t
late
So what happened was that the Doctor’s car was
upside down and somehow his hand was crushed and he was trapped in the
car. Immediately a few Area Boys and bystanders rushed to him to try and
help him out of the crushed car. I quickly parked my car and came out
to help as I rushed to the doctors car. A few other cars stopped as
well.
I
noticed that the other car was motionless and no one really was paying
much attention to that car. What got my attention was the special
number plates on the car which read ‘ DANIEL WILSON’ a popular musician
in the nineties in Nigeria.
When I got to the doctor’s car, the area boys and
bystanders were gathered round the car and were trying to help the man
out of the car in the upturned vehicle. At that point, the man was very
much alive. I swear he was alive and groaning but he was alive. His arm
was crushed or underpinned by the impact of the car and I still think
that it was the inexperience of the area boys and bystanders in trying
to pull the man out of the car, which killed him faster.
I am sorry to say that but that is my belief
because of what I saw. The people who gathered round that car may have
meant well but they were also callous in responding to the emergency and
were dragging at the man, trying to pull him from the crushed car.
The doctor kept crying out ( and I heard
everything clearly because I saw it and was even telling the crowd to be
gentle) and was shouting ‘ No! Take it easy! I’m a doctor. Don’t pull
me like that. Easy!’. I heard everything.
At this time, all attention was on the doctor. And I
heard someone in the crowd say that if anything happened to the man,
they would make sure the occupant in the other car suffers.
Immediately I heard that, I went to the other car
because I thought it was Daniel Wilson involved from the number plates. I
was surprised to see a fair-skinned lady behind the wheel, unconscious
and still. There was another lady in the car with her in the front
seat. I think it was a young lady of about sixteen years or a teenager.
That young lady was weeping and shaking.
After hearing what the guys at the other side had
said about the occupant of the car, my first instinct was to get them
to safety or to the hospital. I asked the young lady ‘ is there anyone
you can call to take you people to the hospital? You and this woman have
to leave this place now and get to a hospital’
I helped stop a taxi and helped carry the unconscious Ibinabo to the car and the taxi took them away.
Then I now returned to the other car of the late
Doctor. When I got there, another set of cars full of some doctors had
arrived the scene. The doctors said they were coming from some kind of
meeting or event near the beach or somewhere near if I remember and that
the bleeding occupant of the car was their colleague whom they had seen
earlier.
By the time I got back, the car had been turned to a
standing position but I believe it was too late for the injured person
in that car at that point.’
‘ So you say the doctor in the car was alive when the accident happened?’ I asked.
‘ He was. There was no immediate emergency care to
help him from competent medical personnel as what would obtain today and
the crowd tried to help him out and he was calling out in pain. It was
sad and painful. So when I saw Ibinabo a couple of years later in
Port-Harcourt and told her that I was the person who removed her from
the car and put her in a taxi, she was speechless and quaky. She too
could have died that evening. She didn’t run away from the scene of the
accident at all. I was the person who put her in a taxi to a hospital ‘
‘Why did it take you such a long time to come out to tell this story?’ I asked
‘ I have been in and out of Nigeria these past ten
years. And I actually thought too that the case was done with all this
while. I was surprised to hear that she was just sent to jail. Look, it
was an unfortunate thing which happened. And I am ready at anytime,
ANYTIME if I am called upon to testify on what I saw. It happened before
my eyes. If my testimony would help put facts straight, I am ready’
I got in touch with Daniel Wison who corroborated
that Ibinabo drove his SUV that night in question. ‘She’s my sister. We
are from the same state and local government. It was the week of my
mother’s burial and Ibinabo had come from Port-Harcourt to help me with
the burial. She was wonderful and really supportive. That day, she
needed the car to get to somewhere on the island and I asked her to pick
any from the pool of cars in my compound. I was surprised when I got a
call a couple of hours later that there was an accident. I rushed to the
hospital, St Nicholas, and she was unconscious. But when she came out
of it, she was delirious and traumatised. She was shaky.
Look Charles, Ibinabo is a gentle soul. It was
unfortunate that the accident happen but it was not intentional in
anyway. And we have been begging the family of the late doctor. Who said
we haven’t begged? I personally, made numerous visits to the house to
see the widow and elders of the family. We attended the burial of the
doctor. I was there. We begged and begged. Not because we think begging
could bring the man back but just because it’s human nature to forgive.
So, it’s not true that we remained aloof’ Daniel concluded.
It’s been much of a nagging battle for me to decide if I should put
out this story or not. The initial hesitation was borne out of the fact
that many people would misconstrue the new testimony as somewhat of a
convenient revelation just to help a colleague, seeing that we are in
the same industry.
But at the end of my internal consideration, a part of
me decided to put it out anyway. First, to record a new chronicle of the
whole sad accident which millions, including me, never knew happened.
It’s better to be on the side of history which stands for true reportage
of events in this case. And since Mr De Gaulle is very willing to give
his account to any reporter or law enforcement agent for some measure of
revision, I am prepared too to give out his number to members of the
fourth estate of the realm and even the late doctor’s family to find out
more from the fellow himself.
Finally, I have always maintained that we all are
bound by the laws of our society. Ibinabo is serving a sentence passed
by a law court and we respect that. We sympathise with her and as an
industry would share the comfort between her and the family of the late
Doctor.
But the final closure of this matter, beyond the law
and prison sentence she would serve, rests on the family of the late Dr
Giwa really. Now that there is a final vindication, as gleamed from the
letter by the late doctor’s sister, what happens after Ibinabo serves
her sentence? Would the family carry the hurt till the end of time?
A platform for reconciliation and forgiveness has
to be set in motion. This is not just about the law now but about
healing. Healing. Healing for all parties.
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