Godwin Ekpo, the tricycle operator whose wife was shot dead by a police officer, Corporal Aremu in Lagos, has been discharged from the hospital, after undergoing surgery in his jaw.
Meanwhile, the killer cop and members of his team had since been arrested on the order of the Commissioner of Police, with the Isheri Oshun Divisional Police Officer queried.
The 28-year-old killer cop was arraigned before an Ebute Metta Chief Magistrate’s Court on 18 September, 2015 on a two- count charge of murder and causing grievous bodily harm.
Subsequently, the court Magistrate, Afolashade Botoku, ordered that the defendant be remanded in prison custody for the next 30 days, and adjourned the matter till 19 October, 2015.
Husband of the deceased, who was taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, has reportedly been operated upon following the bullet that hit him in the jaw and right arm.
The Akwa-Ibom state indigene, who is yet to come to terms with the reality of his wife’s demise, described the incident as the worst tragedy that had befallen him, Vanguard reports.
“I don’t know what I did to the policeman to have warranted such calamity. I have never had any issue with the police all my life. I was returning from church that fateful night in the company of my wife and four children; Mary, 12; Blessing, 9; Abraham, 7; and 11-month-old Elijah. On reaching Obalagbe, along Ijegun road, some policemen stopped me. One of them came and demanded for N2,000. I told him the passengers were my family members and that I was returning from church. My wife who was with this baby (pointing to 11 months old Elijah), came down and was even explaining to the policeman. But he refused to listen. Before we knew it, he fired a shot which hit my wife on the head. She died right on the spot. The bullet pierced through her head, hit me in the jaw and right arm. That was all I could remember until I found my self in the hospital.
“Oh! The wife of my youth is gone. She was a friend, a sister, a wife and a mother to me. Where do I begin from? How do I take care of these children alone, especially Elijah?” the father of four sobbed.
“Although the Police tried their best in paying for the treatment but that cannot bring back my Comfort Idongesit. The Lagos State Commissioner of Police visited me in the hospital, where I was told that my children’s education would be taken care of. But they have not started school. We are still waiting for the next move.
“My life has been shattered by that singular incident of September 16, 2015,” he added and went further to appeal to the Federal Government, the governors of Lagos and Akwa-Ibom states and well-meaning Nigerians, to come to his aid.
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