The family of a commercial motorcyclist, Idowu Olanrewaju, who was shot by a mobile policeman at the OPIC end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on Friday, October 21, 2022, has lamented being abandoned by the police.
The victim’s wife, Balikis, who is pregnant, said her husband’s condition had affected her upkeep and the education of their two kids.
She said, “The police have abandoned my husband. I have been staying with him in the hospital since the incident happened. I am pregnant and I can no longer go to a clinic. It was when we were preparing to buy baby items that he was shot. We have two kids and they have stopped going to school. They have also been staying with us in the hospital. Even feeding ourselves has been a major problem for us. We go out to buy food to eat, and sometimes when we eat in the morning, we don’t find anything to eat till the following day. I have no job and my husband has been the one fending for the family while using the motorcycle to work.”
Idowu, who plied the Berger-Mowe-Ibafo route, recalled that a policeman attached to a construction company, Julius Berger, had slapped him while he was trying to access the route through the newly constructed road on the day of the incident.
He said a colleague of the policemen ran towards them and tear-gassed his eyes, while the other, who later joined, kept flogging him with a belt.
The motorcyclist noted that when he could not take the beating anymore, he stood up from the ground and ran, which was when one of the policemen shot him.
Idowu said the policeman who shot him and an investigative police officer from the Adigboluja Police Division, Ogun State, only visited him twice since he was hospitalised.
He claimed the officers forced him to write a statement at the hospital.
He said, “The day they came to obtain my statement in the hospital, I was scared as they were intimidating me with their gun. They also sent everyone outside, including my wife, before they started to force me to write a statement. They were telling me what to write, but I refused. I wrote what happened but I was surprised that it was something else they claimed I wrote. They said I was dragging a gun with the officer and also said I claimed to be an OPC member.”
The victim also accused the police of holding on to his motorcycle, saying the person who gave him the bike to pay by instalment had been demanding payment.
He said, “I had a total of N31,000 on me on the day of the incident. My in-law gave me N15,000 for my wife; I earned N1,000 that morning and I was supposed to deliver the remaining N15, 000 for my weekly payment, but I did not find the money on me after I found myself at the hospital. If they cannot provide for my welfare, they should give me my bike.”
The Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said he was not aware of the current condition of the victim and promised to find out and get back to our correspondent.
He had yet to do so as of the time of filing the report.
