Brother of Anu Okusanya tells vigil that family prays for gang
Anu Okusanya's brother has said that his family prays that "the Lord will have mercy" on the gang behind the attack which led to her death.
Anu died after running to raise the alarm after she saw a gang who had attacked her previously attacking someone else.
He also revealed that in the days since her death the family had become aware of more incidents against her in the weeks leading up to her death.
Anu died after running to raise the alarm after she saw a gang who had attacked her previously attacking someone else.
He also revealed that in the days since her death the family had become aware of more incidents against her in the weeks leading up to her death.
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00:00Thank you so much everyone for coming here tonight.
00:17Just a few weeks ago, Anu and I were looking forward to today.
00:25Because today was supposed to be the first time that she would have seen her son since
00:35the last 15 months.
00:39Today was the day that she was supposed to reunite with him.
00:44We planned that we would go to the airport this morning to pick him up and spend the
00:51whole day together.
00:55That cannot happen but I think Anu is looking down here tonight and she is proud that her
01:05son is not alone.
01:10She can see each and every one of us and I am sure she is happy knowing that Ola has
01:20got a lot of uncles and aunties and parents and brothers and sisters.
01:27I want to say you are not alone Ola.
01:39Anu was born on the 29th of April 1978.
01:44She was the last of five children.
01:48Ola is the first, I am the second and we have two boys and Anu are now men, sorry,
01:58in their fifties but Anu was the last.
02:07She was a very dear one to us all.
02:10We were a very, very, very close family.
02:15Every single day we would chat.
02:19Every single day we would be in touch with one another.
02:27My evenings would never be the same again because when I go for walks in the evenings
02:35for about an hour and a half I am on the phone talking to Anu almost every day.
02:43So Anu went to primary school in a place called Ikeja in Lagos, Nigeria and she went
02:52to secondary school and then she went to Ogun State University to study mathematics and
03:01education.
03:02She was a brilliant person, highly, highly intelligent.
03:10She graduated and became a teacher.
03:15She taught so many young people.
03:17She was good in teaching younger children and she did a fantastic job.
03:25I am not going to call names but one of the celebrities that we know out there today was
03:32a student of Anu's.
03:35So she was a brilliant teacher and there was a time our mom fell ill with dementia
03:47and she needed care.
03:50Anu decided to change her career from a teacher to a carer.
03:57She went, studied all about care and she became a carer to her mom.
04:05She did a fantastic job.
04:07She was excellent.
04:09She was really, really excellent.
04:12Our mom was so happy to have her.
04:16She cared for our mom until she passed some years ago and since then Anu has remained
04:26a carer to elderly people and on the 15th of May just last year Anu came into this country
04:36to work in Ashgrove Nursing Home as a carer.
04:40She's done a fantastic job there from what we've heard and everyone in the home is quite
04:48devastated but proud of what she achieved.
04:55So I will start by saying on the 24th of August was the day that things turned around.
05:09It was the day.
05:27It was the day we got a phone call.
05:38It was the day we got a call that no one would ever dream of getting.
05:45It was the day that she finished her shift as usual and she was walking home and she
05:56witnessed an altercation and she called the police immediately of course but she feared
06:12for her life because of the experiences she had the preceding months where she had been
06:21attacked by youths on the streets on various occasions.
06:31I could only remember two other occasions but in the last few days we were going through
06:39her records and we saw that there was much more and we saw that she was scared for her
06:49life and she wrote, you know, she actually spoke it out.
06:57She said that she was scared for her life.
07:01The normal routes to the shop she couldn't take those routes anymore.
07:05She said she had to go through a long route.
07:10She said even some evenings on the way back from work these same youths will come at her
07:18and start throwing bottles at her.
07:21You know, it was traumatic for her and she said it that she was scared for her life.
07:28So on the 24th of August we can imagine what she was going through and she ran.
07:34She thought she was running for her life but she ran to her death.
07:40She had to run to a colleague's house and that's when she suffered a cardiac arrest.
07:48Actually she suffered four cardiac arrests within two hours and she had to be put on
07:58the life support for some days and on the 28th of August she was declared dead.
08:14I know it's very difficult to take, extremely difficult but I just want to say thank you
08:28so much for your support.
08:31Nevertheless, I want to pray for those youths.
08:41My prayer for them is that the Lord will have mercy upon them and show them his grace.
08:49That the Lord will bring them out of that darkness that they are in into his marvelous
08:55light.
08:56That the Lord will deliver them from that bondage and that life of chaos and lead them
09:05to true peace and take away the foolishness of this world and give them godly wisdom.
09:17Thank you very much.
09:18God bless you.