The victim, Adewale Lala, alleged that the attacker whom he identified as Toye, stabbed him in his right eye in a bar with a broken bottle.
Lala, a trader who relocated from Cote D’Ivoire to Nigeria, said he had never met Toye or had any altercation with him before he attacked him.
According to him, he and some friends were invited to the opening of the bar by the owner.
Lala said, “Soon after we arrived at the event, a young man, whom we later identified as Toye, started to foment trouble. I don’t know what angered him. He went ahead to remove the cable supplying electricity to the bar and the place was thrown in darkness.
“Then, he started breaking bottles and attacking people. Suddenly, I realised that I had been stabbed in the head. I fell down but people helped me up. As if I was his target, Toye came straight at me and stabbed my right eye and I collapsed into a gutter.
“One Mr. Rotimi Olumo arrived at the scene and told people to help take me to a hospital.The hospital refused to attend to me because of the severity of the injury even after Olumo begged them. Then the police came and saw me in the car. They said I should be taken to a hospital on Ring Road where I was treated.
“I paid N35,000 and was discharged on the second day. The pain was so much that I had to go to an eye hospital where I was charged N250,000. But I could not raise the money immediately. I was later taken to another hospital where surgery was carried out on the eye.”
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Lala said that he was later told that Olumo was the leader of the Aare Gani Adams faction of the OPC in Ibadan and that the man who blinded him is a member of the New Era faction of the OPC.
“I am not a member of OPC and my presence at the bar was based on invitation. I urge leaders of the New Era faction of the OPC to provide Toye,” he said.
Toye was again alleged to have been involved in another mayhem in Oke-Ado, two days after the bar brawl.
However, in a dramatic twist, the New Era faction of the OPC has declared Toye missing, saying he might have been kidnapped or killed.
Effort to get Toye’s contact was not successful but the national Public Relations Officer of New Era OPC, Adesina Akinpelu, confirmed that Toye was a member of the group.
He said, “I do not know Toye personally because it is a group with a large number of members. I found out that he joined us a year ago. I was not there so I cannot confirm the man’s story of the attack.
“I have investigated the matter and found out that Toye was not the attacker. He arrived at the scene after the fight had started and he was attacked. He had an altercation with Olumo and I heard that he fought Olumo at the scene and escaped thereafter. We have declared Toye missing. He might have been kidnapped or killed because we have not seen him since that day.”
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