Stray bullets from suspected military officers has reportedly led to the death of a 28-year-old pregnant woman, Mary Pelemo, in Kogi state
According to the elder brother of the deceased, Mr. Idowu Pelemo the incident occurred on Wednesday night at about 8.30 pm in Magongo, Ogori/Magongo local government area of the state.
Idowu said soldiers in three convoys – an Hilux van with registration number Lokoja 446 KG and another one painted in army colour with registration number 014 – chased a driver from Ibilo in Edo state to Magongo.
He narrated that immediately the driver of the vehicle got to Magongo, he alighted from his vehicle and escaped, adding that the men in army uniform started shooting sporadically as people started to run for the lives, but his sister who was standing in front of her house was hit by stray bullets.
“At about 8.30 pm on Thursday, 30th December, 2020, three military patrol vehicles chased a commercial vehicle into Magongo community in Ogori/Magongo LGA in Kogi State, shooting sporadically.
“The driver of the commercial vehicle was forced to park after his vehicle was hit a number of times by the soldiers bullet and bolted into the dark, abandoning the vehicle. The soldiers continued their chase of the driver in the most careless and unprofessional manner, shooting without being mindful of the villagers. In the process, Mary, was hit on the stomach. The soldiers, in spite of Mary’s mother’s shout and cry that her daughter has been hit continued their chase, breaking into people’s houses in the most bizarre manner and asking the whereabouts of the driver even when he is not a native of the community.”
It was gathered that some youth who came out prevailed on the military to take the victim to the hospital which they did after a lot of arguments even as the victim was bleeding profusely. They eventually took the victim to one Dosam Clinic after the Federal College of Education Okene which is a long distance from Magongo and abandoned the mother and the victim there.
The victim, already weak from bleeding received only first aid at Dosam Clinic where they were advised to take the victim to Lokoja, the state capital.
It was gathered that when the Local Government Chairman, Hon. Goke Oparison heard the news, he called the Head of Vigilante in the Local Government who told him that the victim was taken to Dosam Hospital. At the hospital, the Chairman arranged the Local Government Ambulance to take the victim to Lokoja. At about 2.00 a.m when the ambulance arrived, the victim was already in bad shape. She died shortly after she was put inside the ambulance.
Rather than take her to Lokoja that ambulance returned her corpse to Magongo. The youths of the community who woke up to hear the bad news were angered by the unprofessional approach of the military to the whole situation, especially that they abandoned the mother and the victim at Dosam hospital and failed to show up since they abandoned the victim and the mother at the hospital, believing that their agreement to take the victim to the hospital the previous night was only a means to escape from the scene in order to hide their identities.
The agitated youths went on to block the road by making burn fire on the highway. It took the intervention of the Local Government Chairman, the police, and some community leaders to return normalcy to the community.
There is however fear from the community and the family that the matter may be swept under the carpet as little or no action seem to have been taken at the time of this report.
The father of the deceased called on the Kogi State Government, the Commissioner of Police in Kogi State, and the high command of the military to intervene and ensure that the right thing is done as a mark of respect to the person killed and to the family who has been grieved by this unfortunate incident that befell them just before the new year.
When the Army Public Relations Officer of the Command Army Record in Kogi state, Major Jaafaru Muhammed was contacted, he said “the Army was not involved in any operations please”.
