By Dayo Johnson, Akure

There was a commotion as a passenger alighted from his motorcycle at a neighbourhood in Araromi, Akure and an Amotekun Corps’ van suddenly swerved towards him by the roadside and the occupants began to shoot into the air as the vehicle came to a stop, according to a commercial motorcyclist popularly known as Okada, Oluwarotimi Oluwasegun.

People around, scared by the gunshots, fled, but he stood back.

That was the beginning of Oluwasegun’s horrors as he was shot in the leg by the Amotekun operatives, leading to the amputation of the leg about a month later.

The incident happened between 8a.m. and 9 a.m. on August 9, 2021.

The father of two boys, nine-year-old Samuel and six-year-old Oluwadarasimi, narrated his story in court filings and supporting affidavit.

An Ondo State High Court in Akure, which heard his suit, in a judgment on Wednesday ordered the state government to pay N30 million in compensation to him.

Although the incident happened in 2021, Oluwasegun, through his lawyer, Tope Temokun, did not sue the Ondo government at the High Court until about a year later.

And when he did, he sued the state government for N100million compensation.

According to Temokun, he filed the suit on behalf of his client on October 28, 2022.

The lawyer said he filed the suit after receiving an October 26, 2022 reply from the state government to his complaint letter, alleging that his client was arrested while the Amotekun officers were on a trail of kidnap and armed robbery suspects.

He had said it was wicked to link his client to such crimes.

Narrating his story of the fateful day, the victim said in the court documents: “I did not run because I presumed the officers were carrying out their lawful duties, and, more so, when I did not do anything incriminating that might warrant me to flee at the sight of Amotekun officers”.

Peeved that he did not flee like others, four Amotekun men, Oluwasegun said, “alighted from the van, accosted me, and to my surprise, they started to harass and beat me.”

According to him, he was still struggling to make a sense of the situation when one of the Amotekun officers “fired a shot on my leg with the rifle he had tied to his neck.”

The men then dragged him into the back of their van and drove him to the Amotekun Headquarters at Alagbaka, where he was later abandoned, Oluwasegun said.

At their office, according to the claimant, he was abandoned outside uncared for, until a senior officer came out and directed that he be taken to the outfit’s medical unit.

At the Amotekun’s medical unit, he said, nurses only bandaged the gunshot injury and referred him to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owo, “for immediate treatment of the leg.”

The Okada rider recounted how the Amotekun men drove him roughly down to Owo, with his fractured thigh “barely hanging to the flesh” for 45 minutes that seemed to him “like 45 years” of pain.

He said he was treated for barely 24 hours when he learnt on Tuesday, 10 August 2021, the day after the incident, that the medical staff of the hospital went on strike.

“This was the end of any meaningful medical attention that the leg got at FMC Owo,” he said.
With no further care, the condition of the wound worsened and the leg became smelly as it began to decay, which led to the amputation.

Delivering judgment in the case, Justice Omolara Adejumo, on Wednesday, awarded N30 million against the Ondo government and Amotekun Corps.

“In awarding this sum, the court condemned in the strongest terms the illegal shooting of the applicant (Mr Oluwasegun) in the leg that led to the amputation of his leg,” the claimant’s lawyer, Temokun, said in a statement.

“The shooting, torture and abandonment of the applicant by the officers of the respondents constitute a gruesome violation of the applicant’s right to personal dignity.”

Temokun, during the hearing of the case, had sought, among other prayers, an order directing the state government and the other defendants to pay him N50 million “as general damages” and another N50 million as “exemplary damages,” making a total of N100 million “for the violation of the applicant’s right to personal dignity.”

Temokun maintained that Oluwasegun deserved “compensatory damages for breach of his fundamental right to personal dignity.”