The courtroom fell into a heavy, painful silence as a woman known only as SSD wheeled herself forward to testify. Her story was not just evidence in a terrorism trial; it was a mirror held up to a nation weary of bloodshed, grief and unanswered questions.
Standing before the Federal High Court in Abuja, SSD, a Department of State Security (DSS) witness, recounted how her life was violently torn apart on June 5, 2022, when terrorists struck St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, in Ondo State. What began as a peaceful Sunday service ended in fire, screams and irreversible loss.
“I lost both my legs. I lost my left eye,” she told Justice Emeka Nwite.
A trained nurse and housewife before the attack, SSD said the explosive device hurled into the church shattered her legs beyond repair. Doctors later amputated them above the knees. The blast also destroyed her left eye, leaving her permanently blind on one side. Since that day, she has lived her life confined to a wheelchair—her independence stolen along with parts of her body.
She was testifying in the ongoing trial of five men accused of masterminding the Owo massacre: Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (25), Al Qasim Idris (20), Jamiu Abdulmalik (26), Abdulhaleem Idris (25) and Momoh Otuho Abubakar (47). All have pleaded not guilty to the nine-count terrorism charge brought against them.
Led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Ayodeji Adedipe, SAN, SSD relived the terror of that morning. She told the court how gunmen stormed the church, firing indiscriminately and sending worshippers into panic. In a desperate bid to survive, she ran to the choir gallery.
There, packed tightly with other fleeing parishioners, death found them.
Because of the crowd, she said, the attackers threw an explosive—suspected to be dynamite—into the gallery. The blast ripped through human bodies. When the smoke cleared, lives were gone, limbs were missing, and faith itself lay bleeding on the church floor.
She spent five long months in hospital, fighting pain and learning to live again in a body forever changed. She told the court that 41 worshippers were killed in the attack, while many others sustained life-altering injuries.
After her testimony, the court heard from SSE, another DSS witness—an eyewitness and SSD’s husband. His words carried the quiet agony of a man forced to make impossible choices.
He told the court how he signed the consent form for the amputation of his wife’s two legs, how his mother was also injured, and how nearly 100 parishioners were wounded that day.
Beyond the bombs and bullets, he spoke of abandonment after survival.
According to him, the Ondo State Government had promised his wife artificial legs, a small hope after unimaginable loss. But the promise, he said, faded with time and political transition. The vendor failed to deliver usable prosthetics before the previous administration ended, and repeated appeals to the current government have yielded nothing.
“She has been forgotten,” he told the court. “I have called the Commissioner for Health several times. Nothing is being done.”
As the court admitted the statements of both witnesses as exhibits and adjourned the case to February 10 and 11.
