The two surviving victims who are receiving treatment in the Plateau Specialist Hospital and ECWA Hospital in Jos told Daily Sun on their hospital beds that they were thoroughly beaten in the presence of the men of the Special Task Force who refused to come to their aid despite appeal for help. The victim killed by the mob, Joseph Olajobi was stabbed in the stomach and he died instantly.
One of the surviving victims, Mr. Dele Awojulu, said three of them, who are bricklayers were on their way to work at the Jos North Children Hospital when they met a mob carrying dangerous weapons.
Narrating their ordeal, he said “it was about 9.00 am, we went to our working place. We passed through Tina Junction to get to the new children hospital under construction where we were working. We did not know that there was a fight before we set out to work. We just found that we were facing a mob coming down the road. There were soldiers by the side, even their armoured tank was stationed there.
There were about three soldiers there. ‘We went to meet them and appealed to them to assist us but they said they could not help us; we should just know how we would help ourselves. We were helpless until the mob of mainly Hausa boys came around and started beating us.
We shouted but nobody came to our rescue. They did not care at all if we were humans being or not. If they had helped us, our colleague, Ade Emmanuel would not have been dead by now, Awojulu lamented.
“We all ran into different directions. As I was running it was even the women among the mob group that captured me. The women were dressed in trousers. They handed me over to the men and they started beating me. I was hit below the stomach and I fell. There, I still heard them shouting Ka kese, ka kese meaning kill him, kill him I pretended to be dead until another set of soldiers came along in a vehicle and helped me to get up.
Even when he had dragged me up, the mob group turned back and wanted to come back to finish what they had started but the soldier told them that if they came near him he would kill them. When I looked up to check for my colleagues I saw that one of them had been stabbed in the stomach. The task force men used their two vehicles to convey us to the hospital.”
Asked if the people in that community were opposed to hospital project, he said it was not the case. ‘We had been working there had been working there for three days before the incident and there was no indication that they had problem with the citing of the hospital there. When asked whether those who watched them being lynched were not fake soldiers. He said they were not. ‘I am sure they are real soldiers. They were wearing army uniform and properly dressed. There is no indication that they are fake. They were standing by an armoured tank.”
Posted: at | |