….Survivor Faces Blindness
Nearly two years after operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) fatally shot two-year-old Ivan Omorhiakogbe and seriously injured his one-year-old brother, Eromonsele, during a botched raid in Delta State, the agency has failed to provide justice, compensation, or the promised medical care.
Despite public acknowledgment of responsibility and pledges from both the NDLEA and government, including a plan to fly the surviving child abroad for urgent eye treatment, neither financial compensation nor medical intervention has been delivered.
The child’s vision remains at risk, while the family continues to grapple with trauma and neglect.
The incident occurred on July 13, 2023, when stray bullets from NDLEA operatives struck the siblings at their mother’s shop during a raid targeting drug suspects in Okpanam. The elder child, Ivan, died on the spot; Eromonsele sustained a gunshot wound to the eye.
Although government officials and NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Rtd), visited the family and announced plans for overseas treatment, those assurances have since amounted to empty promises.
Presently, the boy has neither received treatment nor has the family received meaningful compensation.
In a damning critique, Senator Neda Imasuen, Chair of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct, and Public Petitions, dismissed the agency’s N20 million compensation offer as “insulting,” calling instead for N100 million to be deducted directly from NDLEA’s budget. He emphasized that the agency admitted fault, confirming that the fatal bullets were fired by its operatives.
The family’s lawyer, Mathew Edaghede, is demanding N2 billion in compensation, arguing that a life was unjustly taken and another irreparably altered.
This case, currently before both Senate and House Committees on Public Petitions, has become a symbol of institutional failure, bureaucratic apathy, and the glaring absence of accountability in Nigeria’s justice system.
The NDLEA’s continued inaction, despite its own admission of guilt, has further deepened public mistrust in law enforcement agencies supposedly tasked with protecting citizens.
