Widow demands police support for daughter hit by stray bullet

A widow, Patience Ajibo, on Thursday, appeared before the judicial panel of inquiry set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to probe activities of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and asked the police to provide financial support for her 13-year-old daughter hit by a stray bullet in 2019.

Ajibo told the Justice Suleiman Galadima -led panel that her daughter was hit by stray bullet on November 27, 2019, at Wuse 2 in Abuja on her way back from school.

She said a doctor at the Wuse General Hospital where the girl was rushed to for treatment informed her about the incident.

The petitioner said: “I wasn’t there when the thing happened. One of the doctors at the Wuse General Hospital called me up to break the news to me.

“When I went to the hospital, they had already performed an operation to remove the bullet on her.

“I met my daughter lying down in the hospital. I saw her with a bandage on her back and she was bleeding.

“A policeman I met informed me that it was a police bullet that hit my daughter during an operation.”

Ajibo said she took her daughter to the National Hospital in Abuja for further treatment in the company of her brother, Ofoma Ajibo, and a friend.

“When we got to the National Hospital, she was given an injection and the bleeding stopped. I paid for her treatment the following day,’’ she added.

She revealed that the girl was discharged the following day on her request, saying they were going from home for further treatment after the discharge.

READ ALSO: Police attack, arrest Abuja #EndSARS protesters

The petitioner said her daughter, who was 12-year-old at the time of the incident, was in Junior Secondary School (JSS) 2 and writing her terminal examination when the incident happened.

My daughter has stopped going to school because of chronic back pain.

“When she went back to school, I asked the principal to set examination papers she missed but he bluntly refused.

“Please, I want my daughter to go back to school to become an educated lady in the future and not a school dropout,” she told the panel.

The petitioner said she borrowed N170, 000 to offset her daughter’s hospital bill and that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) police command supported her with N140,000.

The woman, however, said she was still paying for her daughter’s treatment.

“My daughter is always complaining of back pain.

“I want further diagnosis for her and this requires more money and I need help,” Ajibo concluded.

The counsel for the NHRC, Kwadudi Okoh, told the panel that the police informed the commission that upon the payment of the N140, 000 to the petitioner, they had closed the case.

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