I’m Living In Sorrow – Woman Shot By Policeman In Lagos

Once bubbling with life and very ambitious, her plans had been left in shreds since a bullet fired by a policeman shattered the lower part of her leg…
The 33-year-old mother of two had gone to a shop around Agunbiade Street, Ijesha, Surulere, Lagos State, about 8pm to buy pepper she would use to prepare the food that her children would take to school the following morning. While she was at it, an argument ensued between workers at a hotel located on the street and some policemen, who raided the facility. The operatives, who were said to be from the Special Anti-Cultism Squad of the state police command, resorted to shooting during which a stray bullet hit Olugbodi in the leg.

“June 6, 2018 was a day I will never forget,” the hairdresser said as she sat on a chair at the veranda; regret written all over her face. “My husband brought me and my children home from shop that day around 8pm.

“Shortly afterwards, I went out to buy pepper that I would use to prepare the food that my children would take to school the next day. Some policemen wearing black jackets with the inscription ‘Anti-Cultism Squad’ demanded money from the hotel workers close to where I was buying pepper but the workers refused to give them.

“It resulted in an argument and the policemen started shooting. The gunshots caused confusion and people were running helter-skelter. As I wanted to leave where I was buying pepper, a bullet hit me in the leg and that was the last thing I knew until I found myself at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital,” she added.

And that was the beginning of the problem that has shaped the life of the young woman and her family. In the months that followed that ugly incident, she and her husband expended all their savings to salvage her leg from being amputated. Sadly, the police, according to the hairstylist, have done nothing to bring succour to the family by ensuring that the trigger-happy policeman was fished out and punished accordingly.

“My shop has folded up,” she said painfully. “I sold everything and spent it on the treatment. The incident disrupted our plans as a family.

“I have been living in pains and sorrow. Any time I look at the injury and how it has rendered me idle, I cry. The police can fish out the policeman that brought this suffering on me if they want to,” she told The Punch, fighting back tears.

Revealing the challenges the tragedy forced the family to deal with, the victim’s husband, Seun Olugbodi, explained that it would take the grace of God to ease the burdens he had been passing through since the incident happened. The commercial bus driver stated that surgeries and other treatments carried out on the leg had gulped about N1.5m so far.

“A man rushed in to tell me that evening that my wife had been shot,” he recalled. “When I got to the scene, her leg had broken. We took her to a private hospital but a doctor referred us to the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi. When we got there, the doctors said they did not have blood in their bank.

“We were referred to the Military Hospital in Yaba. The doctors there also told us they did not have blood. We then went to LUTH. We spent about N100,000 that night. Doctors told us that it would require a lot of money to save the leg from being amputated. About one week later, she underwent the first surgery.

“After some days, the doctors discovered that a hole the bullet left in her leg was not closing up. They said the bone had broken and advised that the part had to be cut off. It was about two inches according to them. They did another surgery to cut it off.”

Seun disclosed that his wife underwent a third surgery – grafting – to cover the bone left open by the bullet, stating that she spent about five months on admission before she was discharged.

“We were asked to pay N450,000 before we could go whereas we had no money again. A woman, whose mother was also a patient in my ward, called a senior police officer in Abuja. The officer contacted the hospital to discharge us.

“At least, we have spent about N1.5m; that is what I can remember. She is still going for physiotherapy every week,” he added.

The native of Oyo State stated that he joined a monthly contribution last year with a plan to use the money – N300,000 – to rent a new apartment, lamenting that when he collected the money in September, he spent it on his wife’s injury.

He said, “As we speak, we owe rent and our landlord has been disturbing us. At a point, we had to drop one of the two rooms we were using. All of us now live in a room.

“I always paid my children school fees on resumption but since this problem started, I have not been able to pay. The school is giving me the grace of allowing them to be in class based on my past record of prompt payment.”

The distraught man stated that at the peak of the crisis, he wrote to the Lagos State Ministry of Health for financial assistance but did not get help.

The father of two said efforts made to get justice on the life-threatening injury inflicted on his wife by the policeman had not yielded positive results, thereby compounding the pains the family had been going through.

He said the woman, who facilitated the release of his wife at the hospital got them a lawyer, adding that they later got a letter from the Federal Government inviting his wife to a meeting at Ikeja High Court.

He recalled, “When we got there, we met a lot of people who were victims of police brutality. That was in January 2019. The officials that addressed us took the account of each victim and relations of those killed by policemen. They promised to get back to us but we have not heard anything from them since then.

“That was how we knew the policemen came from the Anti-Cultism section in Gbagada. The police can identify the team if they want to investigate the matter. But if they refuse to bring them to justice, I am sure the policemen will not escape the punishment of God.

“The Ijesha Police Station was aware of the incident. Residents protested at the station and the owner of the hotel also informed the then Divisional Police Officer who visited the scene.”

Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Bala Elkana, had yet to reply to an enquiry sent to him.

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