Shot by police, rejected by hospitals
What were the circumstances that led to his death? A police constable was said to have hit and injured a student cyclist coming back from school in front of the taxi park of the institution located opposite the police outpost at about 10pm. Instead of assisting the student whose leg was fractured from the assault, […]
What were the circumstances that led to his death? A police constable was said to have hit and injured a student cyclist coming back from school in front of the taxi park of the institution located opposite the police outpost at about 10pm. Instead of assisting the student whose leg was fractured from the assault, the police officer lifted the motorcycle and took it to the station. Students around got angry and decided to attack him but he fired a shot in the air to ward them off.
However, what prompted the policeman to fire subsequent shots, one of which pierced through and broke the spinal cord, exiting through the stomach and eventually leading to the death of the 25-year-old is yet to be known.
More crises was said to have been averted with the combined intervention of the school authority and the Director of State Security Service which balted a student uprising against the police who immediately reinforced with mobile and conventional officers who fired shots into the air till daybreak.
Though the police erroneously gave his name as Kamsulum Musa, his real names are Mohammed Musa Lawan, but popularly called Tella. It was earlier said he died from a stray bullet resulting from a scuffle between some students who sought to forcefully retrieve the motorcycle of a colleague who was assaulted by a police officer trying to enforce the 6am to 9pm operational limit for motorcycles reintroduced the day before by the state government to curtail criminal activities. The police also said that the officer must have fired the subsequent shots accidentally during the struggle with the students, probably to prevent them from snatching his rifle.
Minutes before he was shot, the deceased had after spraying his apartment at the 202 Housing Estate with insecticide left for the roadside to recharge his handset. A friend of the deceased, who witnessed the entire fracas and whose life the deceased probably saved that fateful night, spoke to Weekly Trust. He said while they sat by the road, they discussed how the deceased tried unsuccessfully, for years, to gain admission into the institution. One question that kept re-echoing was that: Was the police officer aiming to shoot at the friend whom Weekly Trust learnt, openly confronted and challenged the policeman (along with others) for failing to attend to the student whose leg he broke after hitting him with a stick while he sought to enforce the ban on motorcycle operations? Eyewitnesses said late Musa’s friend was said to have repeatedly challenged the police officer while he had threatened to shoot him; a threat the boy was said to have dared.
The eyewitness said a crashing sound attracted him and others to the scene of the incident. “We rushed along with other students and saw an injured student by the roadside and learnt that the police who were enforcing the ban on motorcycle movement tried to stop him and in the process hit and injured him with a stick. The broken pieces of the stick were still there when we arrived. What annoyed us was that rather than attend to the injured student, the police officer just seized and carried the motorcycle to the station. The students angrily rushed to attack the particular one who hit him with the stick. He shot into the air and the students dispersed and one of us called the relatives of the injured student motorcyclist”, he narrated.
Our correspondent learnt that the boy’s father was taken to the police station by students to know who injured his son. “The police officer came out but refused to say anything. When the boy’s father insisted on an explanation, police officers at the station defended the action of their colleague. The boy’s father then told them he would not join issues with them, rather he would take up the matter with their superiors.”
He decided to take his injured son to the hospital and asked students to help lift his son’s motorcycle into the trunk of his car. This was when the policeman cocked his gun, attempting to shoot any student who dared to. “I was there when they wanted to put the boy in the trunk and my late friend came to persuade me to leave the place to avoid trouble. As we turned to leave, the injured student’s father and other people were trying to lift him into their vehicle. The police officer then pulled the trigger. He did not shoot in the air. He aimed at us and the bullet hit the deceased in the back. While trying to fire the second shot, a military relative of the injured cyclist shoved him aside and another bullet pierced the leg of another student. The one which the deceased went through his back, piercing through his stomach”, the eyewitness explained.
The deceased was first rushed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) where they rejected him because of the gunshot wound.
“After we showed them our identity cards and that of the injured student and explained to them what happened, they said there was no bed space. We laid him at the reception and one of the doctors just stood there. I became very angry and started challenging him. When he kept crying out that he was going to die and we saw that he was bleeding profusely, we left and took him to two private hospitals and he was rejected too. They insisted a police officer must be present,” our correspondent gathered. But Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ogbonna Onovo had in September 2009 directed doctors to henceforth treat gunshot victims even if they were not accompanied by the police.
Friends and family described him as an obedient, easy going, social type and hustler who never depend on his parents. Those who knew him said they were surprised that the police can cooked up a report and radioed it to the Borno Police Command that he was hit by a stray bullet while challenging the police. “How could someone get shot from behind through the spinal cord if he was challenging the police? If he challenged the police, he should have been shot from the front,” another witness said.
The Borno State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Isah Azare had while confirming the incident advised the public to desist from taking the law into their hands. He said if any police officer is found wanting by the public, such cases should be reported to the nearest police station. He said three persons were initially arrested in connection with the case but later released to douse tension while investigation on the case continues.