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Graduate with PhD in Physics, 31, fell to his death from block of flats after taking job in call centre he was over-qualified for

* Dr Philip Elliott recently competed a degree at Reading University
* In the weeks leading up to his death he had suffered a number of career knock backs
* The 31-year-old fell from the roof of an apartment block in west London

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An academic jumped off scaffolding to his death when he was only able to find a job in a call centre after finishing his doctorate, an inquest heard today.

Dr Philip Elliott, 31, who had recently completed a PhD in physics at Reading University, was seen on the sixth floor of an apartment block in west London just after 11am on January 27 this year. Police tried to call him down but he fell from the property in Cromwell Street, Kensington, an hour later, the hearing was told. Westminster Coroner's Court heard Dr Elliott - who was also a qualified engineer and was described as a 'high academic achiever' - had suffered a number of career knock-backs in the weeks leading to his death. His landlord of seven years Harry Duphnath said the most recent he knew of was in December last year. In a statement read to the inquest Mr Duphnath said: 'I was aware Philip had started a job with Southern Electric - I think in a call centre - which wasn't what he aspired to.

'He mentioned being frustrated at work and unhappy about being there and had started looking for other jobs and going for interviews.
'The last one was the week before Christmas in 2012.
'I saw him ironing his shirt getting ready for the interview.
'While I was there he checked his emails and he had one which said the interview had been cancelled.
'He was a bit low about that, but he wasn't angry. He said that he would plod on and keep going.'

The landlord said he received a text message from Dr Elliott on January 24, three days before his death, apologising for not doing some tidying up. It read: 'Sorry. I've had a terrible time the last three weeks. Thanks for your patience. I can't explain how stressful it's been, but I appreciate it's not your fault.' Mr Duphnath said him and his wife Sonia were 'utterly shocked' to hear Philip had taken his life days later.

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Low: The coroner could not say for certain if Dr Elliott meant to take his own life and said his actions could have been a 'cry for help'
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Det Con David Gadsby, of the Metropolitan Police, said a resident in the block where Dr Elliott died reported hearing footsteps on the roof at 9.30am that morning, but thought nothing of it and went back to bed.
An hour-and-a-half later a motorist driving past the building called police expressing concern a man might be preparing to jump. Officers arrived within five minutes but were advised not to talk him down as it was too dangerous to get out onto the scaffolding. Paramedics who were already on the scene tried to revive him but the science mad graduate was pronounced dead from multiple injuries at 12.10pm. Westminster Coroner Darren Stewart said he could not be sure beyond reasonable doubt that Dr Elliott meant to take his own life as it could have been a 'cry for help.' Recording a narrative verdict, he explained: 'It is clear he was a high academic achiever in science, having achieved a PhD from the University of Reading, but he had not been able to get a job for some time.

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Dr Philip Elliott was seen on the sixth floor of this apartment block in west London on January 27 before he fell, Westminster Coroner's Court heard (pictured)
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'He took work which was perhaps not entirely suited to his skill sets in that he was working in a call centre.
'However, it shows Dr Elliot was committed to gaining employment and to progressing in his life.
'What is clear from the evidence is that he received a number of blows to his confidence in terms of jobs he aspired to which were either unsuccessful or withdrawn.
'It is clear that this had an impact on his general morale, and on the 27th of January 2013 Dr Elliott climbed up on to some scaffolding in Cromwell Road, Kensington.
'Officers decided not to try and talk Dr Elliott down as it would have been dangerous to them and to him.
'Sadly, shortly thereafter, Dr Elliott made a gesture with his arms and appeared to dive towards the ground striking the pavement.'
He added: 'Police enquiries revealed no indication Dr Elliott's actions were planned or that he had intended to take his life, nor is there any evidence to suggest Dr Elliott was subject to any mental health care.
'Whilst perhaps disappointed and suffering from a degree of depression due to his lack of work opportunities he was otherwise a fit, intelligent young man who had achieved well at university.
'It makes the outcome of what occurred on January 27 2013 all the sadder due to that.
'I am not satisfied on what has been presented before me as to be certain Dr Elliott intended to take his own. It is entirely possible this could have been a cry for help.'
None of Dr Elliott's family attended the inquest in central London, but they have since set up a remembrance page in his memory.

[size=16pt]RIP Dr Philip Elliott.

The job market in the UK is currently VERY TOUGH. A few Nigerian academics I know who can't find positions in Europe are returning home to Naija. Sadly, Nigerians back home generally see these returnees as failures.

Would you rather see your kit and kin commit suicide (as Dr Philip Elliott did) on account of under-employment or see them return to Naija and take up a job which matches their qualifications even if the pay isn't particularly encouraging? Just a food for thought![/size]

A Girl Child needs education not ejaculation; she needs a classroom not a bedroom; she needs a pencil not a penis, Ask for her books not her boobs. In fact, if she's too young to vote at an election, then she's too young to take in an erection. Say no to Child marriage. Protect the Girl Child. Child not a Bride.

The much-awaited voting on recommendations of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution took place Tuesday with the parliament throwing out the recommendation of a six-year single term for the president and governors.

It also rejected autonomy for local governments as well as the moves to separate the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) from that of the minister of justice.

On its part, the House of Representatives, which was billed to begin debate on the report of its Constitution Review Committee Tuesday, has shifted it, following disagreement over the procedure to adopt in carrying out the exercise.

The voting in the Senate, which lasted for about five hours, also witnessed the adoption of Section 9 of the draft bill of the amendment, which empowers the National Assembly to make an entirely new constitution for the country.

The senators also adopted Section 3A of the draft, which rejected the president's assent to the amended constitution before taking effect.

[b]The Senate also resolved to alter Section 29 (a) of the constitution that stipulates that a woman shall not be qualified for marriage until she attains the 18 years as they deleted age specification for women being married from the draft constitution and left the marriage age for women open.

While deleting the section from the draft constitution yesterday, the Senate claimed that a woman is deemed to be "full of age" once she is married irrespective of the age she did so.

The parliament, which had earlier retained this section by its voting, opted to alter it in submission to the alarm raised by Senator Ahmad Sani (Zamfara West), who claimed that the provision which stipulates a certain age for women before getting married, was at variance with Islamic law.

After a moment of controversy, Senate President David Mark asked his colleagues to vote afresh on the provision, a situation that eventually went in favour of Sani, who, thereafter, thanked the Senate president and his colleagues for supporting his cause. It is worthy of note that Sani had two years ago married a 13-year-old Egyptian in violation of the constitutional provision.[/b]

Also yesterday, the chamber rejected the placement of the AGF's office on a first line charge but passed the recommendations on the State Independent Electoral Commissions, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), judiciary, Human Rights Commission (HRC) and state legislatures to be put first line charge.

It also okayed a recommendation that a bill automatically becomes law if the president fails to assent to it after 30 days of its transmission.

The senators as well rejected a recommendation barring a deputy governor or vice-president, who succeeds his boss on account of death from standing for election, after serving out the tenure of his or her boss.

They also overwhelmingly adopted a recommendation that election disputes should be resolved within 180 days and before the swearing in of any purported winner.

But the Senate rejected the moves to outlaw the headship of the National Judicial Council (NJC) by the incumbent Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) was rejected.

However, rather than begin debate on the report on the draft constitution yesterday as scheduled, the House decided to halt the consideration of the 135-page report following confusion over the appropriate methodology to adopt in handling it.

Following the submission of the report on July 4, the House had announced that it would dedicate a whole week to debate the report and thereafter vote on it clause by clause. However, this was aborted after some members raised objections to the procedure.

As a result of the controversy, Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Mulikat Akande Adeola, moved that the House should dissolve into the Committee of the Whole to consider the report. In a bid to move ahead with the report, Speaker of the House, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, directed that the report be circulated to all members by today to enable the House consider it.

He announced that the House would dedicate the hours between 10a.m. and 2p.m. in remaining part of the legislative days in the week to the report, adding that there would be no other committee assignments such as public hearing and oversight tours during the period.

[size=18pt]NIGERIA HAS TRULY GONE TO THE DOGS[/size]

[b][size=14pt]I am not a scientist. However, I am sure there must be scientific explanation (e.g. genetic anomaly) for this. Nonetheless, gullible religious and superstitious zealots have already started to insinuate that this event symbolises endtime, this and that. Endtime my foot. I was reading a book, written over one century ago, in which the writer was claiming it's endtime. One century after, the time still hasn't ended. Undoubtedly, he succeeded in deceiving people of his generation that it was end time. People, especially Nigerians, are still falling for the same old endtime trick and gimmick. It's true that religion is a social valve, designed to make people conform with its biddings so they could receive unverifiable and unfalsifiable eschatological rewards. Nigeria would only make progress the day religion dies a natural death as it has in the Scandinavia.

In the developed world, Vets, biologists, and animal scientists would investigate this and emerge with outstanding research papers in high impact factor journals.[/size][/b]

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Detective Jon Seeber, of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office, was the lead detective on the case involving the dead Nigerian man who led a double life. The victim's American name was George Clark. His real name was Eteng Itam. Seeber is photographed in front of the burn out car that Itam died in . (Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com)



[size=18pt]How a Nigerian (Eteng Ikpi Itam) Lived and Died alone under assumed name in US[/size]

A man engulfed in flames hung out a car door as the vehicle sped down Old Liverpool Road the morning of Jan. 11 before smashing into a wall. The man was dead before firefighters arrived.

So began the final mysterious chapter of two lives lived by one man. The investigation into the fiery car crash would eventually tell the tale of a black man living under a white man's name, a Nigerian musician who became an unemployed American mechanic, and a secret revealed only by death.

Detective Jon Seeber and several other detectives from the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office began the tedious process that morning of piecing together what clues they could find. Their goal was to identify the man and notify his family.

The body was badly burned. The car's registration gave detectives a name: George Clark.

Fire investigators soon sifted through the wreckage. A New York driver's license in the man's wallet - which he had been sitting on - was spared from the flames. It also belonged to George Clark.

The driver's license listed an address at P.O. Box 26, at the Postal Service's South Salina Street office in Syracuse. As several detectives talked with witnesses to the crash, others searched for a street address to find a family member. That turned up an apartment on West Genesee Street in Syracuse.

In heaps of documents in the tiny apartment detectives found bills, junk mail, pay stubs, tax returns, a worn birth certificate, expired driver's licenses and a folded, tattered Social Security card. All said George Clark. It was affirmation that they had the right person but little help in notifying the family.
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January car accident on Old Liverpool Road across from Ponderosa Plaza.Dick Blume/The Post Standard

Bank records showed he had less than $1,000 in his account. Staff at a temp agency where he worked said they often had trouble reaching him. His records there listed no family members or contacts. Authorities turned to database searches to find a relative.

An identity unravels

Detectives ran George Clark's name and Social Security number through a state and federal criminal history database and made an startling discovery: The number was tied to another George Clark.

That George Clark lived in North Carolina and had a criminal history. A mug shot and other records showed the George Clark in North Carolina was a heavyset white man in his 50s. The photo on the driver's license salvaged from the car crash showed a black man who was much older and thinner.

Jon Seeber and his fellow detectives were left scratching their heads.

Police in North Carolina confirmed for the sheriff's office that the George Clark there was alive. He told detectives he had problems with identity theft over the years, and that he had previously lived in New York City.

The name that just earlier that day authorities believed belonged to the man killed in the car crash was now all but meaningless.

The dead man had paid taxes and traffic tickets, bought car insurance and life insurance, received a physical from his doctor and gotten approved for a car loan, all using another man's identity.

Seeber went back to the man's apartment. It was a small efficiency with few amenities, but Seeber wanted to be sure they hadn't missed any clues.

In stacks of personal papers, detectives found a battered manila envelope wedged between several other envelopes in a drawer. Scrawled on its front: "Roots."

Inside was an old photo of the dead man playing guitar and about a dozen folded letters written on cheap paper.

The letters were addressed to Eteng Itam. They were from a son, brother and sister. The letters - from the 1990s and 2000s -- asked how Itam's life was in the United States, said how much he was missed and informed him that his father was sick and dying. They also thanked him for sending money orders to his son.

George Clark was really Eteng Ikpi Itam, a 63-year-old Nigerian.

Who was George Clark?

Friends and acquaintances told detectives they only knew the dead man as George Clark. He never once breathed a word about his true identity, though in hindsight, some said, there were hints.

"Basically he was a loner," said Venus Dennis. She met Clark in 2003 outside a bakery in Syracuse. They struck up a conversation and he asked for her phone number.

The pair began going to dinner and spending time together. He occasionally came over to Dennis' house. He mostly went to work and went home, she said.

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Detectives found documents including a birth certificate, social security card, car title, messenger service ID and a social security statement. All said George Clark.Courtesy Onondaga County Sheriff's Office

He told her he worked as a mechanic at Sears for some time and later had a temp job at a plastic manufacturer that lasted two years. Dennis sometimes dropped him off for work there.

On the weekends, he preferred to stay in his apartment rather than socialize.

"If you invited him to a BBQ, he would bow out nicely," Dennis said.

Dennis said she invited him to movies many times, but he never accepted. Instead, he'd typically drive Dennis and her son to the theater and then pick them up later.

He did seem to like two things: cars and books. He read often and would hunt for books at bookstores and thrift shops.

Sherba Whitehurst, who met Clark around 2000, said he preferred books about cowboys and the Old West.

He also loved music, played an old acoustic guitar on occasion and frequented jazz festivals and events in Syracuse.

Although he apparently never revealed his true identity, he did drop hints, friends said.

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Pictured is an apartment building at 1269 West Genesee Street, on the right, in Syracuse. Eteng Itam lived there for more than a decade.Dick Blume | dblume@syracuse.com


"Sometimes he'd talk to you in riddles," she said. "He never said he was from Nigeria." He spoke English, but Whitehurst said she sometimes heard him talking on his cell phone in some other language.
He did tell Dennis that he was from Africa and had left because of a land dispute with his brother, but provided few other details.

He would often become depressed over money, Dennis said. More than once he told her he was behind on his rent and having trouble finding work with the temp agency. Dennis said Itam also showed her a hatchet he kept behind the seat of his car.

"I kind of distanced myself after that," she said.

Who was Eteng Itam?

The detectives slowly uncovered details of Eteng Itam's life in Nigeria. With help from the State Department, they contacted the Consulate General of Nigeria in New York City. The consulate eventually found Itam's family in Nigeria and notified them of his death. DNA kits sent to Africa and returned by the family to the Onondaga County Medical Examiner's Office positively confirmed months later that it was Itam's body in the January crash.

Detectives weren't able to talk directly with Itam's family. They, however, heard from a handful of his childhood friends who learned of his death through his family.

Those friends recalled a much different person than the quiet loner who lived in Syracuse, kept to himself and worked with his hands.

Eteng Ikpi Itam was born June 13, 1949, in Cross River, Nigeria. He came from a financially comfortable, educated and well-respected family, said Eteng Eno, whose father and family were close with Itam's father and family. Eno runs a chemical business in New Jersey.

Itam's father was a prominent government official, his sister a college professor and one brother a chief justice, Eno said.

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Eteng ItamCourtesy Onondaga County Sheriff's Office


Growing up, Itam was an intelligent and polite young man, the friends said. In his younger years in Nigeria, Eno considered Itam something of a role model. He graduated from high school with honors. He was tall, handsome and well-dressed, Eno said, and he never wanted for a date.

He attended college and studied veterinary medicine, Eno said. His real passion, however, was music. He taught himself to play guitar and performed for school groups and church and holiday events.

Eno said he believes Itam studied veterinary medicine to satisfy his father, though he longed to be a musician.

"His father didn't want him to do music," said Sylvester Ikpi, a childhood friend who now lives in Maryland.

Itam came from a large family, Eno said, and his father had many children, several marriages and several divorces. Itam was the only child his father had with his mother.

"I suspect that he didn't see himself fitting in with a large family," Eno said.

At some point, Itam went in a different direction. Eno remembers overhearing his father and Itam's father discuss his son's lifestyle change. Itam, quit his job and moved. He began playing music professionally and toured with several groups, including one that eventually went to play in the United States in the 1970s.

When the band returned home, Itam stayed behind in New York City.

Ikpi came to the United States in 1977 and received letters from Itam's family asking him to look him up. They hadn't heard from him.

Ikpi and others were never able to find Itam, but he apparently sent a letter to family in Nigeria with his P.O. box as a return address. That is how he received the letters that led detectives to his real identity. When he rented the box in 1996 Itam listed the names George Clark and Eteng Itam. In 2009 he removed his real name.

According to Itam's death certificate, he obtained a visa good for four years but that expired. Detectives said birthday cards found in his apartment indicated he may have stayed in a homeless shelter in New York City. A check with the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement turned up Itam's date of birth, but his alien number has been reassigned and his file long since destroyed.

Little is known of Itam's time in New York City during the 1970s. An old, undated ID card found in his Syracuse apartment shows that he worked for East Side/West Side Messenger Service. He was using the name George Clark by then.

Seeber said detectives believe Itam stole the identity of George Clark Jr. while in New York City, but that they found no evidence that Itam committed any other crimes. The real George Clark was born in Brooklyn, but it's not apparent if the two men ever knew each other or met.

A phone message left for George Clark in North Carolina was returned by his mother, Joyce Clark, who said her son was out of town and unavailable to answer questions.

Asked about her son's identity being stolen, Joyce Clark said the identity theft "ruined his life," but that he has since gotten a fresh start.

She said she and her son never had anything to do with Eteng Itam.

"We never seen him before in our lives," she said. That happened years ago. We don't know a damn thing about him and I'm glad he's dead."

A meeting of two lives

Even after the mystery was solved, questions lingered about Itam's final resting place.

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Grave of Eteng Ikpi Itam at Loomis Hill Cemetery, Syracuse. His identity was discovered after an accident on Old Liverpool Road.Dick Blume | dblume@syracuse.com


According to Itam's death certificate, Geico refused to pay on his life insurance because of the identity theft. His family in Nigeria couldn't afford to have his remains shipped home.

The Onondaga County Department of Social Services paid most of the $3,450 cost of the Itam's burial in Loomis Hill Cemetery. Just a few people attended the March 22 service and burial: A few friends, several officials from the Nigerian consulate in New York City, a minister, the funeral director and Itam's landlord.

In the end, the man who lived quietly for decades as George Clark was buried in Syracuse under a modest grave marker that simply reads Eteng Ikpi Itam.

[size=18pt]WHAT A TRAGEDY. RIP Eteng Ikpi Itam[/size]

Hello, those of you following this thread. I found this link (http://www.unilorin.edu.ng/cieunilorin/download/conuass.pdf) on UNILORIN webpage! It shows that Lecturer II on CONUASS 3, earns a total of ₦1,649.509. This amounts to ₦137,459.08 before tax and pensions deductions. Conservatively, a Lecturer II potentially takes home ₦130,000 per month.

[size=16pt]The other question I would like to explore on this thread is this: Can a single person used to UK lifestyle survive on this wage (₦130,000 per month) in Lagos of today? If so, how? She's not extravagant but lives a basic, decent lifestyle: no partying, clubbing, etc, (her only weakness is she likes and does have a nice 4 x 4), just a typical acada. Your contributions would be highly appreciated[/size]