Drunken policeman’s bullet ended my promising career – Ex-Papa Ajasco videographer - Punch Newspapers

Forty-seven-year-old Emmanuel Tomori from Ogun State tells DARE AKOGUN how a police bullet tore through the boot of his car and shattered his right hand at a checkpoint in Lagos on the eve of Independence Day in 2011, and how the police have allegedly refused to comply with a court judgment 14 years later despite efforts to enforce it Take us back to that night in 2011 when you were shot I was 32 years old when the incident happened. On September 30, 2011, which was the eve of October 1, I left the office very late. The police were celebrating Independence Day, and from what we later discovered, some of the officers at the checkpoint had been drinking. I picked up a friend along the way. We were travelling from Ajao Estate Airport Road to Egbeda, which was my usual route home, and we had to go through Akowonjo. When we got to the police blockade around 10.30 pm, my friend and I were in the car, relaxed and driving home. There were two vehicles in front of us and some vehicles behind us because it was a Friday and the area was still busy. When it was my turn, an officer stopped me and asked me to identify myself. I gave him my identity card. While we were talking, he looked backwards and started shouting, “Hey, hey, hey.” I did not know what was happening at the back because my car was still stopped. There were two vehicles in front of me when we heard two gunshots consecutively. My friend and I were trying to figure out what was happening. I was still relaxed. My right hand was on the steering wheel, waiting for the officer to return my identity card. As he was shouting at the officers at the back, we heard another gunshot within seconds. That bullet came through the boot of my car and hit my right hand. What did you feel at that moment? I just felt as if my hand was jerked forward, and blood splashed everywhere. Immediately, my friend saw what had happened. He opened the door, dived out, and took cover. I came down and faced the officer who had my identity card. I told him, “I have been shot. I have been shot.” He turned towards the officers at the back and told them that somebody had been shot. Then they started walking away. There were three officers at the back, and the one standing beside me also took off. I was still asking for my identity card, but then I saw the blood pumping out of my hand as if somebody had opened a tap. It was gushing out. I quickly grabbed my right arm and tried to put pressure on it while looking around for help. I was shouting, “Officer, help! Officer, help!” But they all disappeared. I was very surprised. Then I realised that this happened right in front of the Dopemu Police Station. My friend and I rushed towards the station. What happened when you got to the police station? The vehicles that had been stopped were already moving forward. Officers inside the police station had heard the gunshots and were rushing out, asking what happened. They started questioning us. They asked me to identify myself and wanted to know whether I was an armed robber and why I had been shot. While my friend was answering their questions, I was more concerned about the amount of blood I was losing. I tore my shirt and wrapped it around my arm to put pressure on the wound. I started thinking about what to do next. I realised that my phone was not in my pocket; I had left it in the car. I tried to go back to the car so I could call my family, but I blacked out. I don’t know what happened. I just went blank. When I woke up, I was on the ground, seated beside the tyre of an abandoned car. I was covered in blood and water. My friend told me they thought I was dead. They had poured water on me and slapped me to revive me. A lot of people had gathered in front of the police station. They were angry and shouting that the police officers had been drinking since about 5 pm or 6 pm and had been disturbing the peace, searching people, and harassing motorists. One woman even went as far as packing some plastic bottles from where the officers had been stationed. She brought the bottles containing traditional herbal drinks and other things they had been drinking. From there, I was rushed to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. What were you doing for a living before the incident? I was a video editor, motion graphics and visual effects editor. At the time, I was aspiring to become a video director in Nollywood. I am a graduate of the University of Ado-Ekiti, now Ekiti State University, where I studied Geography and Planning Science and graduated in 2004. I was working with Wale Adenuga Productions, the producers of Super Story, Papa Ajasco, and other programmes. I was managing the brand called Nnenna and Friends.See more Punch stories on Google.Add Punch on Google That was my work then, and it is still what I do now, but I could not move up the ladder to become a director because of this incident. I was one of the best in the industry when it came to visual effects and motion graphics back then. I was 32 years old when the incident happened; now, I am 47. How did the shooting affect your career and livelihood? The trajectory of my career was greatly altered. I could not continue doing what I was doing or grow in the industry. Apart from not being able to get jobs, I have been stigmatised. I am now a disabled person, and the incident affected my life greatly, both emotionally and physically. Not being able to provide for my family is something I cannot really explain. As a graphic artist, I use computers, and I cannot hold a mouse with my right hand. I had to switch to using the mouse with my left hand so I could still do something. I have survived by working remotely on Fiverr and other platforms, doing video editing and making $10 or $20 here and there. You described the moment of the shooting as traumatic. How has the experience affected you psychologically? What I felt then was fear. I was traumatised. I saw blood everywhere. I am still not normal right now because that event affected me mentally. I cannot really describe it in detail because you may think there is something wrong with me mentally. Psychologically, I am exhausted. What happened to your hand medically after the shooting? I was taken to LASUTH from the scene. I was admitted there for about a month. They tried to revive the hand, but they could not. I went through two different operations and was in the intensive care unit twice because I bled out. They took veins from my left leg to try to connect the artery, but the procedure failed within about 48 hours. After spending a month in the hospital, the doctors suggested that the hand should be amputated to save the rest of my body. But I believe in prayer. My family and I pray a lot. When I was about to be discharged, the doctors said reconstruction could be done, but not in Nigeria. They suggested that I travel to India for reconstructive surgery. Why did you decide to sue the police? It wasn’t really courage. I was left with no choice because I could not afford the procedures required to revive my hand. When I came back from India, the hospital recommended nine different procedures. Those procedures could not be done at once, so they broke them down into three stages. They said the hand could be revived. The first stage cost me $10,000. At that time, I had to sell everything I owned. By everything, I mean household items and even the car I was driving when I was shot. With the help of the company I worked for and my family, I was able to raise $10,000 and travel to India. They could not perform all the stages at once, but they did the first one, which was to restore a good blood supply to the hand. Accord unveils campaign council, promises 550,000 jobs in Ogun IG deploys DIG, two CPs over abduction of 20 prospective corps members Fela FC dominate to win Independence Cup I am grateful for what they did because it revived the hand to an extent. It began to look healthy again. Before then, it was stiff and dark. But when I returned to Nigeria, I could not raise enough money for the second stage, let alone the third. That was why I decided to seek legal redress. My lawyer, Mr Monday Ubani, started the process in 2012. He did a lot. He wrote to the then Commissioner of Police in Lagos, who took it up and requested a detailed investigation from the DPO of the police station. But after that, there was no follow-up and no response from those quarters. We eventually went to court. What did the court decide? We were at the Federal High Court for about three years, from 2012, and in 2015, we got judgment. The court ordered the police to take responsibility for the reconstructive surgery. The total amount was about $47,000. The amount was in dollars because the hospital in India charged in dollars. I had already paid $10,000 towards the procedure. But I am worried that even if I get the money now, it may not be enough because the cost of the same reconstructive surgery in India is unlikely to remain the same as it was in 2011. Have the police obeyed the judgment? Nothing has come from their side. Not even an apology letter or communication. We started writing to successive Inspectors-General of Police after the judgment, but there was no response. In 2016, we took the police back to court through a garnishee process. About nine banks were invited, but all the banks said the Nigeria Police Force had no money with them. We later found out that the Treasury Single Account had been introduced in 2015, which prevented banks from handling funds belonging to the police. That was why the garnishee process failed. During the EndSARS period in 2020, my counsel was able to join the EndSARS panel that was set up on the Island in Lagos. We presented the case again. The police said they had gone back to investigate what happened nine years earlier. They said the officer who shot me had been transferred to another state and they could not find him, among other excuses. The officer who shot me is Ayuba Philip. His name and service number are on the police report written on the day I was shot. The police issued a report for LASUTH to admit me at the time. What is the condition of the hand today? The hand is still dead. I can only move it up to the elbow. The rest is flat. There is no finger movement, and I cannot rotate it properly. It is stiff. I cannot rotate it 180 degrees. I cannot grab anything with it. How have you survived financially over the years? I have been surviving by working online and remotely. I am on Fiverr and other remote-job websites, making small amounts from video-editing jobs. Sometimes it is $10, sometimes $20. My wife and family have also been very supportive. My wife has really taken the seat for years now. She has, in many ways, taken up the responsibility of being the husband in the house. How has the situation affected your marriage and relationship with your children? I am married with three children. I would not want to go into details because I don’t want to cause another gender war. There has been a crack in my marriage because of what happened. At one point, my wife left me, but we are back together now. We are still together because of the children and everything we have been through. You said you are still in constant pain. What is that experience like? I am constantly in pain. It feels like somebody is twisting my hand halfway. Not to the point of breaking it, but there is a particular pain whenever it is twisted. That is how the hand feels, and the pain is there every day. After the surgery in India, they recommended some drugs that helped keep the pain away, but I could not afford them over time. So I have been constantly in pain. I had to develop a breathing technique to hold the pain off or pretend there was no pain. It has been extremely difficult. Even when I need to use the toilet, there is serious pain. I have used a lot of drugs over the years to suppress the pain. I have even resorted to nicotine. It is crazy, but I have to survive for the sake of my children. That is why I keep pushing and looking for alternatives to stay alive. You mentioned that you have struggled psychologically, including attempts to take your own life. Can you tell us about that? Psychologically, I am exhausted. I have attempted what people would call suicide several times. At the time, I did not know it was a suicide attempt because I was trying to find a solution to the situation. A friend eventually told me, “Come, that’s a suicide attempt.” I told him I did not think it was because I was simply trying to find a solution. But at the same time, I thank God that I am still here. Have you sought help from any other institution to enforce the judgment? Yes. I have written to the National Human Rights Commission several times, thinking they would help, but there was no response until 2024. In 2024, I made a lot of noise online, particularly on X, and I got a response from the commission. I emailed them and sent them my documents. They followed up. But from 2024 until now, there has still been no concrete response. At some point, they wrote that my case had been taken up and that they were looking into it, but I never received any further response. In 2024, my counsel, Ubani, also petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi. There was a response stating that a letter had been written to the Nigeria Police Force for us to continue the garnishee process. Under the relevant law, we needed the consent of the Attorney-General before we could proceed to the Central Bank of Nigeria to recover the funds. The Attorney-General’s office said it had requested the comments of the Nigeria Police Force in May 2024, but we never received a response from either party. The then Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, did not respond. Everything got caught up there, and nothing has been done since then. Have you made any recent attempt to get the police to revisit the matter? Yes. This year, we were advised to write another petition to the IG. My counsel wrote a petition to the IG through the Force Public Relations Officer. This came after the noise I was making online reached a police officer, Eni Edu, who was then, I believe, heading the cybercrime unit. He messaged me online and asked me to get in touch with him, and have my lawyer contact him so that he could look into the case. We did that. He asked us to write a petition to the current IG, which we did. I think the petition was submitted early this month. I am hoping that the current IG will look into it and do what is right. You have also started fundraising. What are you hoping to achieve? I started a fundraising campaign because I am trying to address the situation myself. I don’t really understand the fundraising procedure, but I was able to get a Nigerian website called CrowdR, where my name is listed for fundraising. The last option I have now is to cry to the public. Dare Akogun

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