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| Godwin Udoh |
Panting heavily as he made for a sitting
position on the three-seater couch inside the tiny room, Godwin Udoh
could barely utter a
word. With a large gash under his jaw and a feeling
of pains all over his body, it is indeed one of the most agonising
periods in the life of the 45-year-old Akwa Ibom State native. Since
September 16 when a trigger-happy police officer shot at his tricycle
around the Ijegun area of Lagos, killing his wife and injuring him in
the process, life has not been the same for Udoh and his four children.
Gloom has suddenly taken over their once happy home. |
| Comfort. |
Udoh had gone to pick his wife, Comfort,
35, that fateful evening after a church service after he closed from
his commercial transportation business. A warm and normal evening, there
was no reason to think that danger was lurking along the way. But on
getting to Obalagbe bus stop along Ijegun road where policemen from the
Isheri Osun Police Division had mounted a roadblock, everything changed.
One shot from the fierce-looking officers that had taken over the
entire road that evening left blood splashing everywhere. Udoh is still
counting his loss.
“I
have never offended or argued with a police officer before; I don’t
know why they have brought darkness into my life,” the heartbroken man
told our correspondent earlier in the week. “They killed my wife and
best friend, destroying my life in the process. I don’t know what life
would be like for me and the children.
“The death of my wife, the only woman I
had ever loved my entire life is a big blow. Since my parents died, my
wife remained my strength and source of inspiration. If she had
sustained only injuries, I would have preferred that. But the bullet
ended her life. She was a mother to me and the rest of the family. Life
can never be the same without her,” he said.
Giving a vivid narrative of the moments
leading to the tragic incident, Udoh told Saturday PUNCH that his
failure to part with an amount demanded by the policemen at the check
point caused one of the officers to pull the trigger against all
expectations.
“One of the officers used his gun to hit
my tricycle immediately I got to the checkpoint and asked me to park,”
he said. “He later asked me to give them N2, 000 but I told him that I
didn’t have that kind of money. His colleague who speaks the same
language with me asked me to go.
“As I tried to enter my tricycle, I
didn’t know that one of them was preparing to shoot. I heard a gunshot
behind me and before I knew what had happened, my jaw had been torn open
and blood was gushing out. I thought I was the only one affected but I
heard my children shouting ‘mummy is dying.’ I rushed back to meet them
but saw blood gushing out of her head.
“After seeing what had happened to my
wife, I rushed back to the policemen to tell them that they had killed
her and requested to know what I had done to deserve such. The one who
fired the shot pointed the gun at me as if he was going to shoot me
again. Soon, they jumped into their van and drove off.
“The bullet entered her head and came
out at the other end. The officer shot her twice. My wife was carrying
our last child and after the bullet hit her, my second daughter
collected the baby from her. They were all inside the tricycle when
everything happened,” he said.
According to Udoh, Comfort was still
breathing after the bullet hit her in the head. He told Saturday PUNCH
that vehicle owners around the scene of the incident he approached for
help to rush his wife to the hospital turned him down for fear of not
wanting to involve themselves with a matter that had to do with the
police. The 45-year-old also revealed that had the police issued a
report for him to show doctors at the hospital where Comfort was
initially rushed to, she could have survived.
“All the vehicles I stopped that night
to carry me and my wife to the hospital refused,” he said. “The drivers
said they didn’t want to involve with anything that has to do with the
police. It was a bus driver who took pity on us and helped us. We were
rejected at two private hospitals. At Igando General Hospital, they
requested for police report before attending to us. We were then taken
to Idimu area command where the matter was reported. I asked that we be
given a police report so that the hospital could attend to us but the
officers at Idimu told us to go, assuring us that a police report was
not necessary and that we would be treated. We left there without a
police report and when we got to Igando General Hospital, they refused
to attend to us because we failed to show them a police report. The
driver then went back to Idimu police station to finally get the report.
At that time, it was already too late. My wife had died already.
“She was still alive inside the tricycle
even after the bullet hit her. If we got a vehicle on time to rush her
to the hospital and if the police had given us a report on time, maybe
my wife wouldn’t have died,” he said.
The police in Lagos announced recently
that the officer, who fired the shot that killed Comfort and injured
Udoh had been arrested, dismissed and is facing criminal charges. As a
way of easing the pains the family was passing through, they also
promised to sponsor the family’s four children through school, pick the
medical expenses of the 45-year-old’s injuries and compensate the family
for the loss. But several days after making those pledges, Udoh told
our correspondent that he had yet to see anything.
“Of all the promises the police made, it
is only the hospital bill that they had paid. Initially the money for
my surgery did not come on time; later the Commissioner of Police in
Lagos brought the money and paid the hospital for my surgery.
“They promised to take care of my
children’s education as I can no longer work for now as a result of the
incident which seriously affected my right hand. I have not been able to
use it since the incident happened. The police also promised to help me
get back on my feet fully. But I have not heard anything from them
since they paid for my surgery.
“I can’t use my right hand yet. I cannot
eat because of my jaw. I am not okay at all. I don’t know if I will
ever get over the nightmare of my wife’s death,” he said.
Elizabeth, younger sibling of the badly injured tricycle operator who has been taking care of the children told Saturday PUNCH
during a telephone conversation on Friday that the children cry every
day, asking after their mother. According to her, the youngest child who
is just a few months old and still sucking breast has grown restless
since their mother passed away. She maintained that the incident is a
pill too bitter to swallow for the entire household.
“The children ask me every day when
their mother would come back, I tell them she had travelled to go and
pray for them and that she would soon be back. They would accept my
answer for a short while but would soon come back to ask me the same
question again. I feel like crying in those moments.
“Their mother was a very hardworking
woman who also took us the in-laws as her children too. She was the
pillar behind her husband whom many of us looked up to. To lose a figure
like that is a very big blow for the entire family,” she said.
Foremost rights advocate and president of Women Arise, Dr. Joe Odumakin, who has been helping the family pursue justice told Saturday PUNCH
that the police must begin to take the conduct of its officers on duty
more seriously as any mistake from them could prove too costly for the
society. She insisted that the law must take its course on the matter.
“It is the responsibility of the police
to let their officers know that no one is above the law. They are
constitutionally tasked to secure lives and property but how do we
explain a situation where the police turn their guns against the people
whose lives they are supposed to secure? Justice must be served on this
matter. The law must take its full course so that it can serve as
deterrent to others,” she said.
Lagos State Commissioner of Police,
Fatai Owoseni, revealed earlier that the officer who fired the shot had
been arrested and detained. He assured that justice would surely be
served at the end of investigation into the matter.
“The police are doing all in our
capacity to ensure that the deceased’s children are taken care of. The
police corporal involved has been taken into custody. When we complete
all necessary disciplinary action, he will be charged to court for
murder.
“The team leader and the DPO of Isheri
Osun division has also been issued queries for disobeying the IG with
regards to policemen performing duties out of uniform, and without a
properly-labelled police van,” he said.
Source: Punch Newspaper
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