Linus Oota, Lafia
Women, they say, are very compassionate and caring species. However, when it comes to maltreating their house helps, maids and care supporters, this assumption is probably turned upside down.
To confirm how stone-hearted a woman could be, one only needs to travel his imagination to Nassarwa State, where Ovie Friday, a 13-year-old boy, is wriggling in pains on his hospital bed following the treatment melted on him by his stepmother.
Motherless Ovie was a victim of his stepmother’s anger and paranoid emotions. His hands were allegedly burnt by an herbalist on the instruction of his stepmother. He told Daily Sun on his hospital bed at the Dalhatu Arab Specialist Hospital, Lafia, Nasarawa, that his trouble began when his stepmother, (name withheld) who is heavily pregnant, accused him of being a wizard.
They reside in Wulko, Nasarawa Eggon Local Government. He accused the boy of making love to her in her dream: “My stepmother said she was always seeing me, making love to her in her dream. But I insisted that it was not true.
“She started threatening me, saying that I would not stay in the same house with her; that was when she took me to a native doctor’s house. The native doctor, who is a Fulani man, picked a stone and threw it at me.
After that, he rubbed the stone on me and tied my two hands with a rope. Then, he brought charcoals of the fire and poured it on me and tied my hands, asking me to confess that I was a wizard and a member of a secret society. But I told him that I was innocent of his accusation.
“He brought out powdered pepper and poured it into the fire while the smoke smeared all over my face, with my hands burning. He fetched charcoal from the fire; he did this three times. That was when I began to pray to God. When he saw that I was praying, he came back and untied the rope from my hands.”
“But by this time, my wrists, palms and fingers were already badly burnt. They brought me home and the next day I woke up to see that my hands had swollen. It was at that time that they took me to hospital for treatment.”
Ovie fondly called “Small man” said: “I have forgiven my tormentors.” Residents described the teenager as an unassuming boy, who is a member of the St Mary’s Catholic Church Choir and a class captain at the Government Junior Secondary School, Wulko.
Damages done to the victim affected three fingers on one of his hands. Medical personnel fear that if treatment was not immediately initiated, the hospital might be forced to amputate the hand.
At Wulko Police Station, the Officer in Charge of the case, Danjuma Bujujin, said the police were working to ensure that the perpetrators were brought to justice. The case was transferred to the Nasarawa-Eggon Divisional Police Headquarters for further investigation while the suspects were initially detained for a night.
The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Bola Longe, said investigation into the case was ongoing, promising that the case would be charged to court as soon as investigation was completed.