Nigeria's abysmal
power supply may have saved 14-year-old David Shoyemi from being among the more
than 150 people killed by a devastating plane crash in the country's largest
city of Lagos.
After church on
Sunday afternoon, David's father Emmanuel asked the teenager to walk across the
road to buy a card for his mobile phone.
The phone cards
were sold in the plot of land where the Dana Air MD83 crashed after its engines
failed, killing all 153 people on board and a yet uncounted number on the
ground.
"The minute I
sent him, they brought light," the elder Shoyemi told us , using a
Nigerian phrase to describe when power has been restored.
"I told him,
'quickly go and iron your clothes for school while there is light,'" said
the 44-year-old father of five who owns a clothing store called Wemmy Tino.
His wife died two
years ago and making sure his children are neatly dressed has become part of
Emmanuel Shoyemi's paternal duties.
Moments after he
told his son to start ironing, the plane came down: "then, what I hear is
the noise. Pow! Pow!"
Despite being
Africa's top oil producer, Nigeria sees daily power cuts several times per day,
leading people to use the electricity while they can.
Asked if he
believed his son would been have killed had he gone out to buy the phone card,
Shoyemi simply said, "I give God all the glory."