How SARS Stray Bullet Shattered My Left Leg – Hairdresser Opens Up Before Panel

Mrs Hannah Olugbodi, a 35-year-old hairdresser, has told her police brutality story.

The woman, on Saturday, narrated how she ended up on a crutch after her left leg was shattered by a stray bullet fired by some men of the disbanded police Special Anti-Robbery Squad who were attempting to arrest a young man with tattoos in June 2018 at the Ijeshatedo area of Lagos.

Olugbodi said the SARS operatives were at one Ogun City Hotel, to demand money to fuel their vehicle when they saw the young man with tattoos among a group of persons watching a football match at the hotel.

According to the petitioner, the owner of the hotel, one Abu, who usually gave the SARS operatives money, was not around to attend to them.

She said the SARS operatives labelled the young man with tattoos a Yahoo Yahoo boy (cyber fraudster).

She said an attempt by the SARS operatives to arrest and take the boy with tattoos away was resisted by the other boys, making the SARS operatives to resort to firing gunshots.

Olugbodi said she was at Ijesha market trying to buy pepper to prepare food for her children to take to school the following day when she was hit by a stray bullet.

She said the market women rushed towards her and asked her for her address and the name of her husband, which she managed to give before passing out.

She said she was eventually taken to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital where they said there was no bed space and she was given four bags of intravenous fluid right in the bus.

“They doctor said they needed to do four surgeries. The bullet affected my bone. The doctor said the second surgery would involve cutting my bone because the bone did not survive,” she said.

Olugbodi said she spent six months in LUTH and the doctor told her she needed to return two years later for a follow-up surgery.

“I can’t walk properly; I feel pain every five minutes. When I sat there (in the hall), I felt the AC (air conditioner) inside my bone; I had to go out for a while.

“I can’t walk properly, I stagger now. In the midnight, I can’t sleep. I can’t do my work. Since two years, I have been at home, doing nothing.

“The panel should compensate me and my two kids. It is only my husband that is doing everything,” Olugbodi said.

The petitioner’s husband, Oluwaseun Olugbodi, who also testified before the panel, corroborated his wife’s story, adding that the Divisional Police Officer in the area told him that the stray bullet was fired by SARS operatives from Gbagada.

The panel adjourned the case till December 8 for further hearing.