Nigerians have taken to the comment section of a trending video to lament about the state of the country’s health care system, after a teenage boy lost his life due to gun shot injury he sustained while trying to retrieve football from a man’s compound.
The teenage boy was shot by a landlord in Imo State, Nigeria for jumping into his house to retrieve a ball during a game of football in his school field has d!ed.
Barely twenty-four hours after having surgery, Paul died at the Specialist Hospital in Umuguma, Owerri.
On Thursday afternoon, March 20, 2025, Paul’s guardian, Mr. Jonathan Odikanwa, a septuagenarian, informed Punch that his ward had died.
On Monday, a 16-year-old boy at Urban Secondary School in Owerri’s Area N, World Bank Housing neighborhood, leaped over his school’s fence to recover a ball that had made its way into the unnamed landlord’s property. Paul had to fight for his life in the hospital after the property owner became enraged and shot him in the waist.
Odikanwa had on Wednesday appealed to people to pray for the recovery of his ward as he was being wheeled into the theatre to find out where his bowel movements were impeded.
“He has passed away. My son has passed away. The doctors just said they lost him. Even after the surgery yesterday (Wednesday), we had been hopeful that he would come around. My boy who had lived with me for over seven years had passed on,” he wailed.
According to him, the X-ray didn’t show the bullet in the body but doctors had to operate Paul when it was discovered that his bowel movements were impeded
Though not a biological son of Odikanwa, Paul had lived with the Odikanwas for about eight years running from where he began schooling and was in JSS 1 at Urban Secondary School, Area N, World bank area of Owerri.
The spokesperson of the State Police Command, DSP Henry Okoye, confirmed the incident and the arrest of the landlord who shot the teenager.
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Reacting to the video, one Miracle Henry wrote, “We need free health care in this nation,if there is free health care in Nigeria this young innocent Nigerian boy will not dieee,and to the shooter may almighty God watch Ur intention towards this little boy.”
Ekwy Sunny wrote, “It’s our nonchalant and ogbasaadim attitude that kill this boy. He’s a great fighter who fought so well to live. How can they not put this boy on oxygen, and immediate surgery taken place. But no, all what we do is to cover and post as if life doesn’t matter to us. Rip champion 
thats all I will say”
Richie CLouds wrote, “If that guy survived that gunshot at first he has no reason to die as long as he’s been in the hospital but the carelessness of some hospitals about human lives is so absurd. Someone was shot and there was no oxygen to help him breath, no surgery to remove the bullet from his body probably they are waiting for money to be deposited before they can start treatment on him. You only gave him drip. What are you going to tell the family of that boy now???”
Okeke Okechukwu wrote, “I said it yesterday that the boy should have been taken to good hospital like FMC rather than keep him at that place and be recording him and posting.Chai! this boy shouldn’t have died if the people who rescued him took him to FMC where treatment would have commenced without first looking at money as emergency patient.Oga even you posting up and down,you guys never did anything to save this boys life.l commented yesterday when you posted a video where a voice from the background was saying the hospital says that no money has been deposited for the boys treatment.In that video,that boy was just encircled by croud on a hospital bed without common drip seen administered on him. Its well,it’s better we assist to save life than all these exhibitions,recording,posting and noise making.That boy died out of carelessness.We should refrain from being like what our useless leaders want us to be.”