For releasing the photograph, the Olatoye family is seeking N200 million damages.
C. C. Amedu of Ikeh Sunday Chambers in Ibadan filed the petition on behalf of the Olatoye family, which is accusing the hospital of allowing the gory photographs of the late lawmaker in his dying hours at the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital to be circulated on social media, thereby causing members of his family a lot of grief.
The petition was also sent to the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, and the Ibadan chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association.
It reads in part: “A cursory assessment of the attached photographs revealed that the deceased, as at the time the photographs were taken, was still at the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital in a pool of blood. Therefore, it is reasonable and unarguable to believe that only your staff could access the unit at the material time.
“The above conduct of your staff suggested that instead of your personnel on duty to have acted in their full professional capacity, focusing on taking care of the deceased, which might have probably saved his life, they were busy taking his pictures, which perhaps for the purpose of selling same to social media operators as it can be seen trending online.”