The police allegedly asked the family to vow that they would no longer demand justice in the case before the corpse of their mother would be released for burial, SaharaReporters was told.
The Nigeria Police Force has demanded a court affidavit from the family of a woman who was allegedly killed by a medical doctor at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu State.
The police allegedly asked the family to vow that they would no longer demand justice in the case before the corpse of their mother would be released for burial, SaharaReporters was told.
SaharaReporters had reported that the family of the late Romanus Nwaosu of Amaeta village in Mgbowo, Awgu local government area of Enugu State accused one Dr Chibuoke and a nurse of killing their mother, Mrs Janet Nwaosu at the UNTH on October 18, 2022.
The family alleged that the said doctor (Chibuoke) and the nurse had injected their mother with a drug that killed her less than five minutes after being injected.
According to the family, the accused health practitioners were not the ones assigned to take care of the deceased at the hospital.
SaharaReporters also reported that the Enugu Command of the Nigerian Police Force wrote the Chief Medical Director, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Dr Obinna Onodugo, on October 20, to produce one Doctor Chibuoke accused of man slaughter.
Miss Augustina Nwaosu, daughter of the late Janet, who was taking care of her mother before her unfortunate demise, had told SaharaReporters that the hospital instead of showing remorse and empathy for the alleged killing of her mother, the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Obinna Onodugo, invited the police to arrest her for complaining and demanding justice.
Augustina, who spoke to SaharaReporters on the new development, lamented that since the incident, the UNTH authorities detained the corpse of her mother, called the police on them and now demanded that if they must release her mother's body, she must bring an affidavit from court that her family would no longer seek for justice in the killing.
According to her, "the Divisional Police Officer, Ozalla Division, SP Imo Henry C, told my uncle that we must bring an affidavit from court showing that we don't want case with the hospital before they will release my mother's corpse for burial.
"I don't understand it; we are the victims here, the hospital called the police in the matter. Despite the killing of my mother, my family paid every Kobo as hospital bill given to us. We brought an ambulance which we paid for and the hospital refused to issue us a death certificate to take the body out till 6:30pm in incident that happened around 10am in the morning which triggered the issue of broken window. The ambulance later went away with the money paid to him after the hospital seized the corpse.
"They called police for us and we hired a lawyer which was paid. Now they are begging us to let go of the matter and are still demanding a court affidavit that we will not pursue the case. We didn't want trouble ab initio. The hospital is the one who called police, who want to make trouble with us and now they want us to get an affidavit that we don't want case. Now who will pay us all the money we spent on legal services? Who will pay us back the money spent for ambulance service?" She lamented.
"So, because they have seen at the course of going to the police that they carelessly killed my mother, they are now suddenly afraid that my family might decide to pursue for justice in the matter. Is why they want a court affidavit to place an obstacle or barrier for further demand for justice?" Augustina queried.
"Till now I have not seen the doctor that prescribed and supervised the injection of drug that killed my mother. No empathy from the doctor, her family and the hospital. So they feel as an institution they will intimidate my family and get away with the killing of my mother. But even if they get away with it, God is not man, He is watching," she maintained.