A
27-year-old woman, Mary Sunday, has been in the hospital bed at Igbobi
Orthopaedic Hospital seven months after she was allegedly attacked by her
fiancé, Corporal Isaac Gbanwuan, with a pot of boiling stew and a lighted
stove.
It was learnt that Sunday had lost her ears due to the attack.
Before the
attack, which took place in August 2012, Sunday was to report for training at
the Police Academy, Kano as a cadet officer.
Still
nursing severe burns to her neck, chest and upper arms, Sunday can barely
sit or walk straight. She holds her head stiffly and talks with difficulty as
she recalled the events that led to her present state to PUNCH Metro.
“On the
day I was assaulted, Gbanwuan and I went to see our doctor. We had some health
issues. While we were on our way back home, I made a phone call. Immediately we
got home, Gbanwuan started querying me. He accused me of keeping lovers and
claimed the person I called was my lover.
“I tried
to explain to him that it was my sister I called, but Gbanwuam was not
listening. He began to beat me,” Sunday said.
Unable to
take it any more, Sunday said she ran into the kitchen of a neighbour with
Gbanwuan giving pursuit. He allegedly broke into the kitchen where he continued
to assault Sunday.
She said,
“Then to the horror of those who tried to intervene, Gbanwuan seized his
neighbour’s cooking stove on which was a pot of boiling stew, emptying the
entire contents on me.
“I don’t
know for how long I was unconscious but I was later told that I was in a coma
for seven days. I learnt the stove also exploded after Gbanwuan threw it with
the boiling soup at me.
“I was
first rushed to a private hospital at Bariga before I was eventually
transferred to Igbobi hospital.
“I
couldn’t tell my family for a while because I could not use my hands; they were
sort of stuck to my chest. It was after much treatment, that I was able to use
my hands and call my family.”
Sunday’s
lawyer, Mr. Moses Kassim, told PUNCH Metro that a petition had already been
sent to the Police Provost Office and the Commissioner of Police.
He said,
“We have still not received any response from either of them. Gbanwuan is yet
to be arrested despite the fact that Sunday’s family reported the case at the
Pedro Police Division.
“While
Sunday is confined to a hospital bed, Gbanwuan is still at his duty post at the
Ebutte Ero division, showing no concern for her condition.”
Copies of
the acknowledged petition received by the Provost Office and Commissioner of
Police were dated January 17, 2013.
When PUNCH
Metro contacted Gbanwaun, he denied causing any harm to his fiancée.
He said, “What
Sunday has told you are all lies. She has been going about saying all sorts of
things about me.
“That is
how she wrote a petition through her lawyer to the Lagos State Police Command.
Anyway, the matter is already being investigated by the command.”
When our correspondent sought
his opinion on how Sunday got her injury that had kept her in the hospital, the
policeman said, “I don’t know what to tell you. Like I said, the matter is
being investigated.
The Lagos
Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Damascus Ozoani, said he was yet to
be fully briefed on the issue.
He said,
“I don’t have all the facts right now. Let me investigate and I will respond to
the story.”
But Sunday
said she was more concerned with getting well.
She said,
“All I want is the money to treat myself. My doctors are afraid to tell me how
much because they don’t want me to be worried, but I have overhead them
discussing several times.
“There is
a deep wound in my chest which has to be treated and then my neck has to be
operated on because it has been stiff since the incident and then there is the
matter of my upper arms.
“The
doctor, who attended to me at the first hospital I went to in Bariga, told me
that I would have to go to India to have my ears reconstructed because they melted.
He said I would need N5m.
“Gbanwaun’s
family has abandoned me. They did so immediately my family reported the matter
to the police. My mother is dead and my father is aged. Coping with my daily
treatment here is a struggle for my siblings.”
Source: Punch.
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