New reports have revealed that Kolade Johnson, the victim of the fatal shooting in the Onipetesi area of Lagos, was not given immediate help after he got shot at by SARS operatives, and that is why he died.
The News reports it thus:
The deceased, who was watching an English Premiership match between Hotspur and Tottenham, left a bar in the area when he heard the cry for help.
Immediately, the football fans sprang on their feet and at the scene was two men dragging Ismail, a known face in the neighbourhood, into a bus. They wouldn’t know they were men of the police anti-cultism squad until the uniform of one of the men inside the bus gave this out.
Ismail, a video producer, wore dreadlocks and he had become the usual suspect for the policemen who judged him a criminal just because of the way he looked.
“Then one man came out of the bus, asking people to leave. He started shouting, and threatening to shoot if the crowd wouldn’t go off them.”
The bar where Johnson spent his last moments on earth
Ismail isn’t a criminal, and so, Johnson and others who knew this wouldn’t allow the policemen have their way. They stayed, this time asking the gun-wielding men what exact offence Ismail committed.
As expected, the crowd dissolved after the policemen opened fire. But, it was strange to many who had taken cover inside Kingstine-Jo, the nearby bar where they had come to watch the live English Premiership match, see Johnson still on the same spot.
“He was already bleeding, but many didn’t know.”
How would Johnson still be standing here? The policeman fired another shot. Again, a bullet found its way into his loin.
When the dust had settled: Remains of the bonfire set up by aggrieved youth
NO IMMEDIATE HELP
Within the minutes, everywhere was covered with blood. Battling to survive, but there was no immediate help. While some witnesses blamed taxi drivers whose park was just beside the scene and could have offered to rush Johnson to the hospital, a driver argued they weren’t opened for work as it was a Sunday.
He must have lost much blood before a neighbour, driving past, stopped and Johnson, dripping of blood, got lifted into the car.
ABANDONED FOR HOURS
“Nobody responded in time. One medical guy came and only touched his neck, and he went in, saying BID (brought in dead).
“They left his body on one stretcher and even when declared dead, the morgue refused to take his body in. They were requesting for one paper or the other.”
Following the incident, angry youths in the area blocked the highway and the journey took hours for Awaken to get some papers from a police station nearer to where Johnson was killed.
The emergency unit of LASUTH where Johnson was allegedly abandoned
Returning to the hospital around 12am, the family was asked to make a N50,000 payment without which his body wouldn’t be admitted into the morgue.
Johnson’s body eventually found a space at the morgue around 2am.
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