The life of 18-year-old Ahmad Aminu, the son of a shop attendant, will forever remain changed following a stray bullet from a gunfire that nearly took his life.
The stray bullet, which pierced through Ahmad’s stomach, was said to have been shot from within the neighbourhood, where witnesses said the police were dislodging rival gangs engaged in a fight.
However, the gang members from Sheka Quarters in Kumbotso and Darmanawa in Tarauni LGAs were said to have resisted the police effort, at which point they fired warning shots into the air.
The incident happened in Darmanawa when a fight erupted between rival gangs on Sunday, May 12, 2024, after one Muhammad Barde, 59, organised a Gangi event, a cultural event for local hunters to celebrate the wedding of his children.
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However, thugs had taken advantage of the activity to engage in a supremacy battle in the area, with many of them armed with weapons, and within minutes, a fight broke out.
When Daily Trust Saturday visited the teenager on his hospital bed at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, there was sadness as Aminu’s family still had a tremendous amount of taking care of the injured young man left to do.
He had just performed his afternoon prayer and was on his way on an errand when he felt something had scratched his tommy. Upon placing his palm on the stomach, it was all blood and there he collapsed.
His father, Aminu Sadiq, apparently still in shock narrated how his son, who was just within the neighbourhood, ended up on a hospital bed with a ripped abdomen.
“He was brought home in a pool of blood by good some Samaritans. The boy had just performed his evening prayer and was on his way to buy a bag of sachet water when the incident happened.
“We rushed to a nearby police station at Filin Hockey, Hausawa Quarters, and from there to Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital. Because there was no available bed space, he was given first aid treatment and later referred to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital,” he said.
Malam Sadiq stated that a surgical operation was carried out and the boy has been recuperating but slowly.
He said, “The most disturbing aspect of the whole situation is that after the payment of the initial N20,000 for the hospital bed, we have been receiving hospital bills daily, which have now accumulated to the sum of N238,000.
“We are supposed to be discharged but since we have not been able to pay the hospital bill, they won’t allow us to go and the bill is increasing,” he said.
The worried father is, therefore, calling on the government, individuals and organisations to come to his aid by paying his son’s hospital bills.
“I am only a shop attendant at the market where I only receive N700-N1000 at the end of the day. I do not have the means to settle this hospital bill,” he lamented.
While this teenager is nursing his wound, accusing fingers are being pointed at the police and officials of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency.
Daily Trust Saturday learnt that while some witnesses said the police opened fire at the event, others said it was officers of the NDLEA who did the shooting.
However, the spokesman of the state command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), ASN Sadiq Muhammad Maigatari, told this reporter that the agency’s officials were not involved in any shooting incident.
He, however, said while the officials were at the scene of the fight between rival gangs, they left as it was not part of their mandate to intervene.
Even though media reports suggest that the state police command has also denied involvement in the fracas, its spokesman, DSP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, neither responded to a call put to him nor replied to an SMS message sent to his mobile phone.
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