Mr. Azeez Adeboye who was allegedly shot with a doubled barrel gun by one Pastor Olalekan Taiwo of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Abeokuta in 2011 said  since 2012  the case has been in Court dragging and has no hope of getting  justice . He spoke with TAIWO ABIODUN.

Sends S. O. S  to Nigerian lawyers and Pa Adeboye

For Azeez Adeboye, he is not happy with the way his case has been dragging for over seven years in spite of all the concrete evidences he has and with the exhibits and witnesses presented in Court. He said in tears ” Pastor Taiwo Olalekan has boasted that nothing will come out of it until I am tired of coming to Court .  Here is a man who aimed at me and shot me at close range. Now the case has been on for almost seven years and it is being adjourned and adjourned.

If I had died that is how I would have been treated”. The young man continued in hushed tone ” This is what the man called Pastor Olalekan Taiwo of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Abeokuta turned me to. Each time I wake up at night and sees my leg I feel like committing suicide and painfully the pastor boasted that he would go scot free as he is highly connected”, as he said this he burst into tears.

  This is the lamentation of Azeez Adeboye, a 36- year – old young man and an Ordinary National Diploma holder of Accountancy from  Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta.

Today, Adeboye has become a one -legged man, a phone repairer by accident for his dream of becoming an accountant with two legs has been shattered and his hope dashed no thanks the evil that befell him.

”Here I am who could before now run kilometers but cannot any longer. I cannot go for my Higher National Diploma (HND) due to this amputation. I now buy shoes I cannot comfortably wear, I wear prosthesis or artificial limb and what is the essence of my living?”

He continued ”Who will save me now? .I don’t have money, contacts and connections. I am pleading to all Nigerian Lawyers to come and assist me for I had been brutalized and dehumanized .This case has been on since 2012 and the accused has not been coming to court saying he was sick and many times his lawyer would not turn up .I am being cheated, I have spent a lot going to Court and I make little from the phone repairing and recharge cards I sell.”, he sobbed.

Series of adjournments

The case between one Azeez Adeboye, 36, a Ordinary National Diploma of Accountancy from Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta and one Pastor Olalekan Taiwo of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Abeokuta resumed again on Thursday, October 18, 2018 in a suit filed before an Abeokuta Magistrate Court 2 sitting in Isabo area of the city. The plaintiff, whose right leg had been amputated as a result of gunshot fired by the accused, had previously narrated on March, 6, 2014 how he was shot by the accused, Pastor Olalekan Taiwo on September 11, 2011, while on his way home after the day’s work. On that Thursday, June 5, 2014 the argument in Court  as to whether the pastor should be charged for attempted murder as the Investigation Police Officer accused Olalekan of or that the charge sheet should read infliction of injury came up while the Chief Magistrate, M.A. Akinyemi, asked the lawyer to the plaintiff/witness to make up his mind on what to charge the accused for. The Magistrate then gave 15 minutes to the lawyer to deliberate on the issue with his client. After the deliberation, the lawyer came back to inform the magistrate that the case should be treated as grievous injury inflicted on his client. He also wanted the case to continue and not settled out of court.

Exhibits and witnesses present

Mr. Sunday Egbejale, the prosecutor, called witnesses – the Medical Doctor, Oloko Mazeed who operated on the plaintiff at a State Hospital. The doctor was however put in the witness box and he gave an account of what he knew about the plaintiff/witness. According to the doctor the plaintiff/witness, Adeboye, was brought to him with his right leg battered with gun shots, full of gangrene while he had lost pints of blood as he later gave him pints of blood in order to save his life and to stabilize him before the surgery was performed on the battered  leg. The doctor further narrated how the plaintiff’s leg was eventually amputated due to its worsened condition. The medical doctor tendered all the hospital case files and reports on the treatment. The counsel to the accused also cross-examined the medical doctor. The next witness that mounted the witness box was Morufudeen Sharafat , the traditional native doctor who claimed to have removed six pellets from the plaintiff ‘s leg. He admitted that the plaintiff was his patient and that he removed six pellets from his leg but when he discovered that the bleeding was too much and he could not handle it, he quickly referred him to the hospital. The pellets were tendered in the court as exhibits. The gun used by the accused, which had been tendered in court, it has no license. The Magistrate, however, adjourned the case and further hearing to October 22, 2014. Since then the case has not been concluded and has suffered series of adjournments as at last Month, October 18, the case was adjourned again till December 15 next month.

           THE FATAL SHOT

Speaking to The Hope, the plaintiff narrated how he suddenly became a one-legged man, he said ” I am now using crutches and limping .This is what  the man who claimed to be a Man of God turned me to. My life has been shattered like a pack of cards and it is a pity I am treated with disdain”.

Adeboye went down memory lane to narrate what happened to him, he  said ”On September, 11, 2011 around 8:45 in the evening,when I was in the company of my two brothers, Ola Adebisi and Tunde Solidiq Yusuf as we were coming from my shop where I used to repair phones, and going home on a motorbike”, he continued “we were stopped at Onward Street, Elega Area, around Bodelude by   two men who sat under a tree. The men interrogated us where they were heading to , and we told him we were going to our house at Fadama”.

Adeboye also claimed that he and his brothers also showed to the two men the two packs of Indomie, sachets of water and eggs they had earlier bought, but the two men, according to Adeboye, accused them that they were already late in the night.  Adeboye related further: “It was at this juncture that the accused, Olalekan, whom I discovered was a Pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God started calling us thieves.

He claimed we were on a robbery mission. Firstly, I thought it was a joke until he was serious and I quickly brought out my student’s identity card containing my matriculation number 08010327, but he was not convinced, the pastor told his partner to detain us as   he went inside to bring his gun. I knelt down and pleaded, and begged him that we were not thieves and I even told him to contact our in-law, Alhaji Adeniji, who is living in the vicinity, and that my brother could call him to identify us or they should chain us till the following morning and take us to the police station. While saying this and pleading, the accused had come back with a double barrel gun and pointed it at me.

Again, I pleaded, begging him in the name of God and all prayers that came out from my mouth, pleading to him not to shoot me but he ignored my pleas and said he had shot many like that as I would not be his first victim. He cocked his gun and shot my leg at a close range. I fell down groaning in pains. As this was going on, two Okada riders ran into us and held the Pastor’s shirt that he would not escape. The pastor ran home and brought some liquid for me to drink. Later, I was taken to Shalom Hospital at 71, Ilugun Road, Mokola, Abeokuta, where the doctor said he could not treat me since I was shot at a close range. Then I was taken to a traditional herbalist who specializes in removing pellets. And he was able to remove only six pellets from my leg.”

  According to Adeboye, he was later taken to several hospitals but was rejected until he was eventually admitted to the State hospital at Sokenu, Ijaiye where he was put through days of intensive care and blood transfusion, he was later operated on because the impact of the gunshot had damaged his leg, ”the doctor then advised that my leg should be amputated”. He said he spent about one year in the hospital and his family footed the bill but the accused, he said, only visited him twice and did not turn up again.

Adeboye lamented of the accused’s insensitivity and said the said Man of God had not paid a cent of his hospital bill, but instead has been boasting about that he would be set free. He lamented: “I am sad that a man of God could treat me like this. He said nothing would happen to him and would go for lawyers to defend him. He does not care and I keep on wondering his attitude, but I have God who will fight for me.” “

Adeboye said he has lost many things , he said ” in fact, my girlfriend who I really loved left me for she cannot marry a one-legged man. Do you know that our relationship ended when my leg was amputated?. Besides , my dream of going for my HND was aborted and now I have only National Diploma in Accountancy ”, he continued ”Imagine I had to borrow money to buy this crutch  for N540, 000:00 for I cannot buy the original one being sold for three million naira .Twice, I attempted suicide when the pains were  too much at the hospital. One night I woke up and grabbed a knife to stab myself to death but my mother suddenly woke up from her sleep  and seized it.”

Barrister Idowu Femi Falana, a Lagos -based Lawyer was surprised that the case has dragged for too long, he however volunteered to take up or continue the case. Falana said ” I made my own interest and requested for the Suit Number of the case and or the name of the Judge or Court’s No to enable me follow up the matter/case”, he wrote to The Hope.

Legal opinion sought by The Hope opined that the case had dragged on for too long at the Magistrate Court. The Magistrate should have referred the matter to the DPP’s office for further legal advice which by all evidences had not been done.

Azeez who expresses confidence in divine intervention in his case called on men and women of conscience to help him plead with Baba Adeboye, the General Overseer of RCCG whom he understands is a man of peace and who will not condone injustice or any inhuman treatment to intervene in the matter.

All efforts to speak with Pastor Olalekan Taiwo proved abortive.

But since all these years when the case has been adjourned, the Azeez Adeboye asks “When will I get justice?”

Adeboye said ” I am pleading to all Nigerians to come to my rescue for I  don’t understand what is going on. I want Pastor Enoch Adeboye to wade in , this is too much for me to bear. My father is dead and I have almost become a burden on my mother , this is unfair, and when will I get justice?”, he asks.