EXCLUSIVE: “Nigeria is a wicked country” – forgotten bomb victim explodes
They don’t even care whether one lives or dies. As long as they are okay, they don’t care. This is a very wicked country.
Kayode Olatunji is one of the several Nigerians who emerged from a Boko Haram attack with lives intact. But like some of the survivors, Olatunji paid for the escape with the loss of his health.
At least 16 people were killed when Boko Haram terrorists detonated a bomb at an office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Suleja, Niger State.
The attack happened on April 8, 2011. The presidential election that brought in Goodluck Jonathan was holding the next day.
Olatunji had volunteered to help INEC conduct a credible election. As this story will show, he – like many others – hasn’t been credibly repaid.
Olatunji relives the moment after 2011 INEC office bombing:
I went to INEC office to check my name. As I entered into the office, my boss said ‘Kayode I have been trying your lines all day, you are on my list but you can check the board to confirm for yourself’. I entered the midst of the crowd to check my name, and I suddenly found myself on the floor.
I was wondering what had happened, as there were no longer clothes on my body. I wonder if I was the same Kayode I knew. I touched my face as I neither could see nor stand. So I tried to reminisce my activities of the day from how I got up from the bed, did my daily chores, washed up and proceeded to the mechanic workshop to retrieve my car. I then remembered how I entered the INEC office. That was when I realised it was a bomb blast.
I tried to feel my surrounding using my hands, not knowing that I was touching lifeless bodies that surrounded me. I was wallowing in the pool of blood of dead victims. I called for help but no one came.
Olatunji has since been calling for help from the people that should care. They don’t seem concerned.
But when Boko Haram terrorists attacked the convoy of Muhammadu Buhari in Kaduna on July 23, 2014 – almost killing the retired general – it didn’t take too long for former president Jonathan to do the needful.
“It is true that one armoured SUV and one untreated SUV were sent to the President (Buhari) in the aftermath of the attack,” Buhari’s spokesperson Femi Adesina said.
“The vehicles were in keeping with his entitlements as a former Head of State under the Remuneration of Former Presidents and Heads of State (And other Ancillary Matters) Decree of 1999,” he said.
We wonder if there’s any specific constitutional provision for the real victims of Boko Haram – common Nigerians.
Checks by NewsroomNG show Buhari’s armoured SUV (a Toyota land cruiser) could cost up to $236,000. That’s about N47 million.
We don’t know the price estimate for the other vehicle but Buhari was initially reported to have received a compensation of $300,000 from DasukiGate. Adesina insists Buhari was compensated in cars, not in cash.
But for Olatunji and many other Boko Haram victims, the needed compensations remain elusive.
It’s a crystal clear reflection of how the Nigerian society cares for only the high and mighty, and for those strong enough to take up arms against the state.
After some people in Nigeria’s Niger Delta resorted to militancy in protest of the government’s systemic neglect of the region, Nigeria simply called them together and granted them amnesty with accompanying perks.
The Nigerian government has repeatedly said it may grant Boko Haram amnesty. It’s no longer news that the Kano State government has granted amnesty to Fulani herdsmen, the fourth deadliest “terrorist group” in the world.
Olatunji said he’ll never take up arms against his fatherland. He’s rallied other bomb victims neglected by the government to form the Bomb Victims Association of Nigeria (BVAN).
BVAN officially launched on September 8, 2015. That was four months after Buhari succeeded Jonathan.
“The president is yet to speak on our fate,” Olatunji told NewsroomNG on Monday.
“We wrote the Presidency last year but Buhari is yet to meet with us. We only met with a director of special duties whose identity I don’t want to reveal.
“He said we shouldn’t open up to the media because Buhari has something for us in the 2016 budget.
“I’m not sure if I should trust the government on this one. Why should I trust them?
“They don’t even care whether one lives or dies. As long as they are okay, they don’t care. This is a very wicked country.
“Government don’t treat people like this in other countries,” Olatunji said.
We checked up on one of the “other countries” to see how they treat the victims of violence.
United States’ Department of Justice paid $29 million (about N5.7 billion) to victim families of the June 17, 2015 shooting at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston South Carolina, Reuters reports.
Each family was entitled to at least $3.2 million (about N630 million).
Olatunji said former president Goodluck Jonathan paid him a visit in hospital. Jonathan promised heaven on earth but did nothing.
“Former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan visited me while I was still unconscious,” Olatunji said.
“I was later told the president came to my bed and made a promise that he would not hesitate to take any case that cannot be handled here in Nigeria abroad,” he said.
Nigerian leaders are experts at capitalising on the plight of the downtrodden to generate sympathetic headlines.
Perhaps Jonathan will fulfil his promise to Olatunji if he’s reelected in 2019. But why wait that long when there’s a Buhari at the helms? Oh, we’re not sure Buhari cares.
Maybe Olatunji should just claim to be the son of a Nigerian elite. Perhaps the government will respond then.
Boko Haram attacked Buhari in July, 2014. Jonathan compensated Buhari 10 months later.
It’s 57 months, and counting, since the same terrorists attacked Kayode Olatunji – an ordinary Nigerian whose only crime was volunteering for INEC. But why?
The only money I was paid was N200,000 which was not enough for the hospital bills. It was money from the insurance company. Even INEC gave us nothing – Kayode Olatunji.
When the N200,000 expired, Olatunji was thrown out of hospital as doctors said they couldn’t continue treating him on the feeble promise of an unreliable government.
That was under Jonathan. It’s Buhari’s turn. And it’s definitely Olatunji’s. Yes, that applies to every other victim of Boko Haram…the real victims.
Kayode Olatunji is President, Bomb Victims Association of Nigeria (BVAN).
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