According to Saturday Punch, Thirty-two-year-old Johnson Gbemisola considers himself one of the luckiest men alive. But he is a frightened man. He was so frightened when Saturday PUNCH spoke with him at a private hospital in Mushin, Lagos that he requested that the name of the facility where he is receiving treatment should not be published.
“Right now, the men who attempted to slaughter me probably don’t even know that I survived. I don’t want them to come back and finish the job,” he said.
But Gbemisola, a hefty man, was willing to tell his story in order to let the world know the kind of brutality that existed in Mushin area of Lagos. Mushin has become known as one of the most violent areas of Lagos, with frequent cases of murders, reprisals, attacks and counter-attacks going unchecked by security agencies in the state.
More photos after the cut
On Saturday, December 20, 2014, Gbemisola would have become one of the victims of numerous killings that have taken place in Mushin in the last three years, but he survived. Writhing in pain with a cast on his leg and bandages around his neck, head and waist, the man recounted how a gang numbering more than 10 stormed the No. 239 Agege Motor Road where he lives and demanded to see his brother, Ramon Martins, who owns a hotel in the same building.
He said, “It was around 9pm, I was relaxing at a filling station opposite our house that evening but had to go back home when I became hungry.
“Few moments after I entered my apartment, six men came into the house and asked to see my brother, Ramon.
“I told them I had no idea where he was but they said if they did not see him, they would kill me instead. They said they were there to deal with him. “Before I knew what was happening, they carried me and threw me downstairs.”
The fall broke Gbemisola’s left leg, inflicting on him a fracture that left his fibula bone sticking out. But they were not done with him yet, as he landed downstairs, he realised that other members of the gang were waiting with knives.
“Two of the men had pistols, one had a butcher knife and another, a machete. The men downstairs descended on me. As they kicked and punched me, I felt a knife slashing through my back, my hand and eventually I felt one slash through my neck.
“I realised at that point that I had to do something. I was bleeding profusely but they did not stop. I decided to pretend to be dead. “I let my body go limp and I was lucky. One of them said, ‘This one is dead. Let’s leave him.’”
Luckily for Gbemisola, who at that point feared he risked bleeding to death, the scuttle had attracted neighbours, who started shouting to scare away the armed assailants.
He was rushed to different hospitals where he was rejected on account of his grave condition. “The hospitals probably thought I was going to die no matter what they did,” he said.
A picture of Gbemisola’s undressed wounds showed a deep long gash on his neck and several slash marks on his back apart from the horrific fracture of his leg. “I did not even imagine that I would survive but I can only thank God for keeping me alive,” he said.
Gbemisola said he was not afraid to identify some of the assailants whose names were mentioned during the attack on him. He said the police had visited him in the hospital and he had also given them the names of the men, who he said were members of the National Road Transport Workers at Mushin.
He said, “I don’t know what I did to deserve death. I am also a member of the NURTW and I have seen some of those men who attacked me before. But I don’t work in the same unit as them.”
While Gbemisola was thankful to be alive, the actual target of the attack, Martins, said he probably would have been killed if the assailants knew that he was in the same building at the time. “I slept early that day. I only woke up when I heard neighbours screaming that Johnson (Gbemisola) had been killed.
“I rushed downstairs and all I saw was a pool of blood where they had attacked him. Nobody seemed to know which particular hospital neighbours had rushed him to. “When we eventually located him, I could not believe that he even survived because of the extent of his injuries.”
Asked what he thought could have been the grouse of the men who sought to kill him, Martins said all they wanted was to control the street where he does business. “They hated the fact that I was doing business in the area and prospering. They are gang members in our area and just wanted total control of everything. How can I leave the place for them? That’s where I was born,” Martins said.
According to him, about two years ago, a similar attack allegedly carried out by the same gang had took place in the house. “They tried to kidnap one of the boys working for me. They locked him up in the boot of a vehicle and wanted to drive away before he was rescued,” he said.
Martins, who is a member of the commercial motorcyclists’ union at Mushin said he did not have any issue with the NURTW unit which the gang allegedly belong to.
The attack was reported at the Olosan Police Division, Mushin. When the spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Kenneth Nwosu, was contacted, he explained that investigation was ongoing in the case. He said, “It appears that the perpetrators are in hiding but we will not relent on our efforts to track them down. This festive period is especially important.
“We are determined to give the residents of this state a hitch-free celebration and clamp down on every criminal activity. That is the stand of the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Kayode Aderanti, on this matter.
“The victim is still receiving treatment but my assurance is that nobody would commit that kind of crime and go scot-free.”
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