A certain woman, Mrs. Roselyn Adewunmi, who was reportedly shot by officials of Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, has lamented that she had been abandoned in Ward B1 of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH for nine months.
It was reported that on May 1, 2015, the woman, who worked as a cleaner at the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, sat in front of her plank house at Badia East Oke-Eri community at Ijora, Apapa to take fresh air with one of her daughters at about 8.45pm, when operatives of the SARS stormed the area in pursuit of some hoodlums and shot the woman.
A resident of the area identified as Nwane was said to have been shot dead in the raid.
Adewunmi, a widow and mother of five, said she was hit by the bullets before she even heard the sound of gunshots.
“I did not even know about any shooting. I did not hear any sound initially; maybe because our area is generally noisy. What I heard was my daughter screaming and pointing at me. She was screaming ‘blood, blood!’” Adewunmi told The Punch on her hospital bed.
The 57-year-old woman was shot in her lower abdomen and thigh.
When Adewunmi’s daughter raised the alarm, residents who ran out to find out what had happened, including one of her sons, sighted one of the SARS operatives, identified as Mohammed Abubakar, who reportedly shot her..
Seun said, “We approached the policeman and he said that he fired the shot by mistake. His colleagues were there too. They brought a patrol van and said they were after a robber.
“My mother was bleeding on the ground. They still did not make any attempt to help her,” Seun added.
Adewunmi noted that when they made no attempt to help her, she crawled to meet the policeman who shot her and held him, begging for help.
She said, “My son first went to meet them. But they pushed him back. The policemen said I should not worry that I would be alright. They said the bullet would come out.
“I was pleading with them. I said, ‘please, please don’t leave me like this. Don’t let me die.’ But he pulled away from me, then one of his colleagues spoke to him in Hausa. Then they jumped inside their vans and left,” Adewunmi recounted adding that she was left in a pool of her blood.
Seun was said to have put his mother on his back as he rushed her from one hospital to another while she was bleeding.
It was learnt that the Divisional Police Officer of the area had to come to the aid the woman and helped residents of the area to take her to the hospital.
“Three hospitals rejected me that day until I was finally brought to LUTH where my life was saved,” Adewunmi said.
She added that residents also had to contribute money for her initial treatment at the hospital.
Soon after Adewunmi got to the hospital, she recounted that some men who said they were from SARS, including Mohammed, the man who shot her, visited her in the hospital and handed her N30, 000 for her treatment.
Adewunmi’s son said Mohammed later met him and gave him another N40, 000 for the treatment. But these have been like a drop in an ocean of the huge medical bills mounting against her.
Adewunmi said, “When the officials came, they told me they contributed the money among themselves to help with the medical treatment. They also said that they would come back later with beverages so that I won’t have to suffer. I did not know they only came to check if I would survive or not. They never came back.”
Adewunmi’s health condition deteriorated, leaving her children to run from pillar to post, lookoing for money just to continue their mother’s treatment.
Meanwhile, doctors reportedly said the initial treatment was to save her life and that she would require additional reconstructive surgeries in her abdomen.
Still lamenting her state, Adewunmi amid tears said, “Life has been hard for me. I don’t want to die like this. My situation is not getting better because I don’t have money to spend on treatment again. This bed has been my home now for eight months.
“I used to have a shop where I sold things. My children would have been able to run it in my absence to get some money to survive on. But last year after I was admitted, the shop burnt down with all the goods when there was a fire outbreak in our community.
“Even my family members have deserted me. I just don’t know where to run to now but to call upon the police authorities, whose men did this to me to help me.
“Please, help me call on the police authorities; I don’t want to die like this. They need to see what their bullets have done to me,” she sobbed.
Meanwhile, Adewunmi’s children have said they are preparing a petition to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, on their mother’s plight.
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