University Of Calabar (UNICAL) Works Director Swept-Away By Flood

University Of Calabar (UNICAL) Works Director Swept-Away By Flood

SEARCH parties mounted by family and friends to fish out the body of Mr. Friday Sampson, a director with the Department of Works in the University of Calabar, who was swept away by rampaging flood, Monday evening, have failed to yield any result after two days of frantic search.

 Patience Sampson, his first daughter, said her father, drove to UJ Esuene Sports Stadium from his residence at 3, Akpandem Lane, off Unical Satellite Town.
Patience said:   “He was coming back from the stadium, where he went to pick our mother, Uduak Sampson, who came back from Uyo and along IBB Way, there was a hold up and my father blared and blared his horn but the car in front did not move.

 “So he stepped out to find out what was going on and mistakenly stepped into the gutter and was carried away.” She said her mother and Ime, his 18-year-old brother, who accompanied the father to the stadium to pick the mother, were in the car and because of the intensity of the downpour could not do anything to rescue their father.

   She said: “The rain was falling very heavily and the flood was rapid so my mother and younger brother could not do anything to rescue him, while he was being carried away.” Patience said the men of Cross River State Fire Service were contacted to help fish out the man that night, but that all efforts, until Wednesday morning, did not yield any result. 

“We have searched all the big gutters and forest and now we are at the CRUTCEH river. Hopefully, we might locate him here,” she added. Mr. Eyo, Information Officer with the University of Calabar, said the matter had not been officially reported to the school, adding “but I have heard that somebody like that died.” Cross River Police spokesman, DSP John Umoh, said he was yet to be briefed on the matter.