“Anglican reverend” abandon bleeding church guard in hospital over “high cost of treatment”

By Olabisi Yakub

The security guard got a deep cut just above his left eye.

A security guard got the shocker of a lifetime after an official of the church he was paid to protect abandoned him in hospital over the cost of treatment.

The incident happened on Friday at the Bola Memorial Anglican Church, Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, in Ikeja area of Lagos state. It happened between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m.

The security guard, an employee of The Kings Guards Limited, was left with a bleeding head while trying to prevent a reckless driver and his passengers from trespassing over church property.

A witness to the scene narrated how the security guard got into the trouble which would had been avoided had the danfo driver stick to the road.

Passengers struggled to , injured guard and his colleagues at loggerheads over the detaining the passenger who fought the bleeding guard.

“There was traffic along the route so several drivers were passing the front of the church to get ahead of the logjam,” she told Newsroom.

“The guards already barricaded the place but some danfo bus conductors removed the blockade and resumed using the opening. I think one of the guards became rightfully angry and closed the barricade against an onrushing bus. The driver had to march the breaks to avoid crashing into the blockade.”

The witness said some of the passengers alighted, and instead of telling their driver to reverse started fighting the guard whom they accused of almost “trying to kill us.”

“They insisted the guard must remove the barricade. One of them started dragging it with the guard. They both struggled. The guard fell, and the metal blockade struck him, giving him a deep cut just above the left eye.”

The passenger was taken into the church premises where the chaotic scene continued.

“He was bleeding profusely. His co-guards poured out of the church and started fighting with the erring passenger. They arrested him and threatened to call the police.”

The scene was so chaotic that commuters in vehicles which were trapped in the traffic were seen watching the action.

While all this was going on, the injured guard was bleeding, and clutching the trousers of the passenger who fought with him over the barricade.

A church official, whom some say was a reverend at the church begged the guards to let the driver go.

The bleeding guard was rushed to Eko hospital after a bystander insisted, against the body language of that church official, he would not watch a man bleed to death on church property.

“They didn’t want to take him to hospital, it was like they didn’t want to bear the responsibility for caring for a man who actually protected them,” the bystander told Newsroom, Monday.

“I insisted they had to. I even shouted at a church official who tried to downplay my suggestion. He was old enough to be my father. He said I was being rude. I snapped back at him that I would be rude if it meant saving a life.”

“The man kept dragging his feet and I couldn’t stand it. There were several vehicles in the church premises but they said none of them was available. I told them to use the bus that was involved in the accident which was packed just outside the church gate. They weren’t listening. The security man was bleeding, so I kept shouting at all of them. Unknown to us, the reckless driver had driven off probably to escape a possible police situation.”

“The man I was ‘rude’ to finally provided a car and drove the bleeding official to the Eko hospital just on the same lane. I and one other church member followed them.”

He narrated that when they got to the hospital, there was no nurse to attend to them at the accident emergency ward.

“We had to wait for about 20 minutes for a nurse to attend to us. Some of the hospital workers said only three nurses were on duty and they were attending to other emergencies.”

The erring passenger was not released until he paid some kind of compensation to the security guards.

“A nurse finally came and told us it would cost N5,000 to open a card for, and N2,000 to treat, the injured guard. She said it should actually cost N17,500 because it was already past 6:00 p.m.”

“I turned around and I couldn’t find the church official that followed us. I was later told he is a reverend at the church. I was livid. The Kings Guard patrol never came.”

“When we got back to the church, the reverend looked me in the eye and said ‘thank you.’ I glanced back at him but said nothing.”

The detained passenger was released around 8:00 p.m. after making some sort of financial settlement to the security guards, another witness told Newsroom.