Like a tree that was just sprouting, he managed to get up from the bed where he was lying down, wearing only a pair of blue shorts. His sister and her two children sat beside him, helping him to get up so he could talk to our correspondent.
He looked weary, like someone who had just carried out a heavy task, but the only ‘task’ he had just finished was sleeping. He didn’t sleep soundly, though. His back ached badly all through the night.
He said he was still thankful, in spite of everything. Gone are the days when he used to sleep every night at a corner of a filling station in Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos State, until Saturday, July 13, 2013, when an unfortunate incident happened to him, an incident which was the genesis of his current predicament.
On that fateful day, at some minutes past 11pm, Babatunde Lawal, a 26-year-old indigene of Ibadan, Oyo State, had just closed work as a petrol station attendant in Iyana-Ipaja and had decided to go and sleep at his friend’s house at Cele Ijesha. He was supposed to go to his aunt’s house at Bariga, but she had continually complained of him always coming home too late. His parents had separated over six years ago and the only room his mother rented at Cele Ijesha was too small to accommodate him, his mother and five siblings. Hence, he packed to his aunt’s house at Bariga, but any day he felt like not sleeping at the filling station where he worked and too late to go to Bariga, he would go to his friend’s house at Cele Ijesha, the same area where his mother lived.
So as he left work on that tragic night, he boarded a bus from Iyana-Ipaja to Oshodi, where he would board another bus going to Cele Ijesha. By the time he got to Oshodi, it was getting to midnight already, so he jumped right into the next available bus, but unknown to him, he had just boarded a bus operated by suspected armed robbers.
Lawal said, “I was once a shoemaker. My father placed me under apprenticeship and shortly after that, married another wife and separated from my mother. I saw my father last in 2011 and this situation affected me in a way. After spending five years as an apprentice, my father didn’t come to check on me again. This made me leave my master to look for another job. At that point in time, I started sleeping at a filling station because I couldn’t sleep in the same room with my mother and five siblings. It was several months later that I got accommodated by my mother’s sister at Bariga.
“But before relocating to Bariga, I luckily got a job as an attendant at the filling station where I used to sleep. The filling station is at Alimosho Bus stop, Iyana-Ipaja. On the day the incident happened, I was on afternoon shift and closed very late in the night, at around 11pm. This day, I decided to go and sleep at my friend’s house at Cele Ijesha. I couldn’t get a bus to Bariga and even if I did, my aunt had always complained that I was always coming home late, so I decided to go to my friend’s house. I decided that when it was morning of the following day, I would go back to Bariga.
“As I got to Oshodi to board a bus going to Cele Ijesha, I saw one danfo which already had 10 occupants, including the driver and conductor. I jumped right in. The conductor locked the door and we left the bus stop. But some minutes after, the conductor brought out a gun; the person sitting beside the driver at the front also brought out one; then two other guys at the back of the bus also brought out guns. Everyone started panicking, including the two female passengers in the bus. I was sitting in the second row of the bus with two other passengers.”
Before Lawal and other passengers would know what was happening, the hoodlums started beating them, ransacking their bags and pockets and stealing their belongings.
“They collected my phone and the little money I had on me,” Lawal said.
Then suddenly, one of the suspected armed robbers fired a gunshot from behind Lawal, which hit the poor man on his back. He lost his consciousness immediately.
Lawal said, “I wasn’t struggling with them, so I wouldn’t know why he fired the weapon. At that time, we were at Sanya Express at Oshodi. I didn’t know what was happening to me again after the gunshot hit my back, but I faintly heard one of the guys say, ‘E be like say this one don die’ (meaning, It’s like this one has died.) Afterwards, I felt the arms of two of them lifting me out of the bus and dropping me by the roadside.”
Lawal wouldn’t know what happened to the other passengers. All through the night, he laid by the roadside until the following morning, which was a Sunday.
Fate smiled on him when one of a group of boys going to play football that morning at Sanya Grammar School in the area saw him. That one screamed when he saw Lawal and with the help of the team’s coach and the other boys, Lawal was taken to a private hospital in the area and there he got his first treatment. Thankfully, he regained his consciousness, but by the time he did, he discovered he couldn’t lift his legs again neither could he sit upright with his back.
He said, “I felt severe pain in my back. After spending a week in the private hospital I was taken to, I was then referred to the National Orthopaedic Hospital at Igbobi, where I was admitted to the Spine Ward. Doctors at the private hospital where I stayed couldn’t remove the bullets, they only treated the wound. When I got to Igbobi, they said I had to undergo surgery to remove the bullets. I was told I would spend N1.5m on the surgery alone, but I couldn’t raise the fund. My family couldn’t, either.
“I was expecting the manager of the filling station I worked with to assist, but he didn’t show up, even after hearing about my case. He only gave me money for drugs and food. So I was at Igbobi’s Spine Ward for six months until I was asked to go home since I couldn’t raise the money. An anonymous person paid the discharge fee. I was discharged on December 23, 2013, two days to Christmas. From the hospital, I was taken to Iju-Ishaga to stay in a white garment church where my mother worshipped. I was given a small room by the church, where they used to pray for me. I spent almost two years at the church.
“While there, I slept on the bed, I ate, bathed and did everything on the bed. I was in the church when I started making use of social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, to tell people about my plight. From there, a woman, who owned a non-governmental organisation, saw my posts and offered to help me. She sponsored the first surgery I did in March 2015 in a private hospital in Abuja. She is based in the United Kingdom, but she comes home frequently.”
After removing about 10 bullets, which Lawal kept in a small container and showed our correspondent, surgeons at the Abuja hospital referred him to an Indian hospital for a spinal surgery, which when done, would make his back pain go.
Lawal said, “The woman who sponsored me for the first surgery wanted to help, but she couldn’t get people to sponsor me. She had helped to secure an Indian visa for me and my mother, but along the line, she couldn’t get the money to enable us to travel to India. So since 2015, I have been living in this condition. I live in pain from morning till night every day.
“The last surgery was badly done because after it, I went to do an X-ray, where I learnt there were still bullet traces in my spine. They said that’s why my spine always aches me.”
Asked how much was required to conduct the surgery, Lawal said estimates sent to him by the Indian hospital is $16,000 (N5.04m).
However, since he started sharing his story on the social media, he said he had received N500,000 donation from Nigerians in his bank account; a GoFundMe account (which he showed Saturday PUNCH) opened for him by some “concerned persons” have also generated $1,718 (N541,170) so far. Therefore, out of the N5.04m needed for his surgery, he has got N1.04m.
Sobbing as he spoke to our correspondent, he said, “A man read about me sometime ago and gave me some drugs, which I take to ease my back pain. He too had a similar spinal problem and he is okay now. He said he did his own in Italy and that the surgery took nine hours.
“I also plead with Nigerians to come to my aid so that I can live a normal life again. I want to get out of this bed and do something meaningful with my life because I am still young.”
Meanwhile, Halimotu, Lawal’s elder sister, with whom he now lives with at Obawole community in Ogba, Lagos, blamed her brother’s predicament on their father.
She said, “Our father was the cause of all these problems. Since he married another wife, it’s been hell for us. He made my brother to drop out of school, placed him under apprenticeship as a shoemaker and didn’t even bother to check on him again for many years.
“It came to a point in time that Tunde was living with our landlord then at Ijesha, who was generous. There he would sleep in the living room of the landlord. But my father had a quarrel with the landlord, so Tunde had to stop sleeping there. It was that problem that made Tunde to leave the house at Ijesha and started sleeping at the filling station where he then got a job as an attendant.
“At that time, if we wanted to discuss with him, my mother and I had to go to the filling station. He was just hustling because he wanted to have his own life. He would meet our father on the road and they would just walk by without my father responding to Tunde’s greeting. Please, help us beg our father to show up, let us know whether he is dead or alive. His son is living in pain.”
In the meantime, Lawal can be reached on 07035694304. Any donation can be paid into Tunde Alabi Lawal, Fidelity Bank number 6080096169.
