By Amaechi Agbo

According to the Federal Road Safety Corps, cars are good servants bad dangerous masters. When they are in control, danger looms.

No driver goes into his or her car in anticipation of accident but more often than not, accidents happen. Most times what caused an accident maybe as infinitesimal compared to how that accident was handled by the driver to avert doom and gloom.

On Thursday, December 5th, 2019, former board member of FCT Football Association and Chairman Women Football Development Committee of the Fa, Barrister Victoria Nlemigbo, as was the case within the week, gone to Nigeria Institute of Sports, NIS to write her exams.

Having enrolled in the study few months ago, Barrister Nlemigbo who is the chairperson/ founder of Women Football All Stars Association of Nigeria WOFAAN, was involved in a ghastly accident on her way back from the NIS exams.

The accident occurred close to Games Village, Abuja. The tyre first clamped. It was after the mechanic who she called to fix the tyre had worked on it and asked her to drive the car to his workshop that the accident that could have killed a mother and her three children happened.

Narrating her experience, Mrs Nlemigbo who was full of praises to God for saving her from jaws of death said “I thank God for life. The accident happened on the road towards Games Village, Abuja. We finished exam on Thursday, I was with Buka (a friend) and approaching the Roundabout before Area 1 Bridge, the tyre clamped and the car refused to go. I called a mechanical who came and worked on it and told me to drive it to his workshop which is around Human Right Radio’s office.

“He reversed the car and I entered alone because Buka had left. So as I started the car within 5 seconds, I matched the brake but it was no longer there. The car started flying. The road was always very busy, I could not control the brake. It was just between me and the steering trying to control the car. I was dodging everything and everybody, swerving from left to right, back and forth. When I looked and saw that the next car in front of me was a woman carrying three children, I swerved the car towards a culvert. I entered the culvert so I can reach the side they were still constructing.

“I did everything and in my mind I said ‘if anybody is to be dead in this accident, God, please, let the person be me. Let me not go and carry innocent people’. That was the last thing on my mind and I told God ‘please accept my soul and do as you wish.’

“I then entered the culvert, hit a long concrete pole hoping that the car would stop but it got worse. As I was dragging the steering, I was at the same time hitting and brushing some cars along the line. I brushed about 15 cars before it finally stopped.

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“What happened to me is better imagined. It was like a movie. I came out of the car, nothing happened to me. Not even a scratch,” she narrated. Adding that “Of course people’s cars were damaged. My own car was damaged seriously. Everything damaged except the engine. The mechanic latter came and tolled the car to his workshop.

“I was not hurt. On the following day, Friday, I went back to NIS to finish my exams. I did not have any issue. Friday was the day we wrote our final exams.

“Most of the people I damaged their cars, came and hugged me and said ‘this woman, you are a child of God.’ The accident happened for a long stretch. They saw what I was battling with, to avoid hitting anybody. They were concerned and thanked God for the way I handled the accident. They accepted to repair their cars. Just a few ones that were saying ‘madam, why didn’t you entre a ditch.’ But I did not have the mouth to answer them. It was people that were blaming them.

“The children I wrote the exam with celebrated me as if I resurrected from the dead,” she explained.

On the importance of NIS study, she described the course as the engine room of coaching and enjoined every individual who wants to build career in football in whatever form, to go for the course.

“It is an eye opener. I have been in football for more than 20 years and I have been a member of coaches association for about ten years. I never really thought of the importance of going to acquire the basic knowledge of coaching. That is a course that everybody that has anything to do with football needs to know, it does not matter if you are a coach.

“You need to have an understanding of the basis of how to handle and understand players. To even discover a talent, you need to have an eye for the game you are interested in. it is a loaded, compact programme. It may be basics but it worth it. It has opened my mind to the need for capacity building which everybody must have if you want to impact on your field,” she concluded.