I have never been beaten in my 76 years, says Sunmi Smart-Cole

Renowned photojournalist, Sunmi Smart-Cole, who was former photo editor of The Guardian newspaper, former editor of Lagos Life, and Director at ThisDay, has been discharged after a week-long admission in a Lagos hospital, where he was treated for injuries he sustained from presidential security men who manhandled him during President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Lagos on March 29.

He has, however, threatened to sue the Department of State Service (DSS) for their rough handling of him, which made him slump at the birthday Colloquium for former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“I have never seen anything like that in my 76 years,” said Smart-Cole, who was a photographer to President Ibrahim Babangida, an art promoter, jazz drummer, and a famous face in Lagos social circles, who would clock 77 on September 25, 2018.

“The oldest of those who assaulted me would be younger than my son. I told them who I was, but they were not interested. Former governors Segun Osoba, Niyi Adebayo, governors Aminu Tambuwal and Rochas Okorocha, who had to vacate his seat for me where I was made to sit down to be revived and stabilized until Dele Momodu took me away,” he said.

He lamented that after the ugly incident, which almost took his life and left him hospitalized for more than a week, there has been no apologies from the presidency over the incident.

“The Office of the Vice President, through Mrs. Miriam Uwais, wife of former Chief Justice of Nigeria, invited me to take pictures of Tinubu’s Colloquium. That was where I was assaulted. I do not know why the security men made the place so rowdy.

I am better now,” he said after being discharged on Saturday evening.