The Osun Judicial Panel of Inquiry has on Thursday received yet another petition of one Mr Amos Adeyemi who is accusing police of shooting him in the mouth on the 22nd of June 2003.
AffairsTV report, that Mr Adeyemi explained to the panel, when he was traveling from Osogbo, Osun State, to Offa, Kwara State, on that fateful day on a commercial bus along with other 17 passengers when the bus was accosted at Nigeria Railway Crossing Police checkpoint, Okuku, Osun State, by a patrol team of the Nigeria Police Force.
“The driver settled the officer that stopped us but as the bus moved, another member of the police team on the other side (later identified as Constable Olalere George with Force No. 367218PC) fired gun shots at the bus and wounded 7 out of the 18 passengers”, he said.
“The gunshots entered the bus from the back, shattered the back and front glasses of the bus, hit my head from the back and came out through the mouth, and in the process, scattered my mouth, lips, teeth and jaw with blood gushing out from my body”.
He said that he instantly fell into coma and was rushed to Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital (LAUTECH), Osogbo, where I spent some days before he was then transferred to Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, where several surgical operations were conducted on him
“As a result of the incident, I became permanently disfigured as I have lost my lower lip, lower jaw and some teeth and I can not live an average normal life. I can’t farm. I can’t do any work. Neither can I eat any solid food, talk well, control saliva nor appear in public without using a towel to cover my mouth long before Covid-19 pandemic.
He appealed to the panel to compel the Federal Government Inspector General of Police and Osun State Commissioner of Police to compensate him with N20million and also to take him abroad for further medical attention.
In the same manner, the bus driver, Mr. Ibrahim Olagoke, who had also filed a petition before the panel on the same incident, said he filed a petition before the panel to seek redress on the pains suffered due to the tear gas fired at him and the unlawful detention of his vehicle by the police after the incident.
He explained that seven out of the 18 passengers he took from Osogbo to Offa were gruesomely brutalised by the police on the said date and that after shooting at his bus, the police officers ran away from the scene, abandoning the victims in a pool of blood.
“Apart from Mr. Amos Adeyemi who was shot in the head, seven other passengers in my bus were injured while one pregnant woman who sustained gunshots injuries in the stomach lost her life at the hospital”, he added.
Olagoke said that he held tightly to the policeman who fired the gunshots to prevent him from escaping until a group of armed police officers from Okuku Division, arrived the scene, teargassed him in the face.
He explained that he had acquired the vehicle on hired purchase for a sum of N1.9million and that the vehicle was detained for 221days after the incident which made if impossible for him to continue paying back.
“I have suffered a lot of mental and psychological trauma. I used my money to take the victims to the hospital where I spent N640,000 among other expenses”, he added
He appealed to the panel to order the Federal Government, the Inspector General of Police and the Osun State Commissioner of Police to refund him of #331,500 for which he treated his passengers and also a compensation of N5million for the pain and trauma he suffered.
The case was adjourned till Friday, 19 February 2021.