A woman, Charity Iyonetu, 45, has been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command for allegedly torturing a 12-year-old boy for allegedly being “possessed.”
This was revealed on Tuesday by the state Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohimi, during a parade of suspects at the police command headquarters in Ikeja.
It was gathered that Charity, a mother of two, on visiting her home town in Ugwuta, Imo State, observed that the victim did not go to school.
On inquiring about the boy, she was reportedly told that his father did not care about him because “the boy is possessed.”
The suspect said, “I saw him when I travelled home and observed that he did not go to school. When I inquired about him from my sister, she said his father abandoned him on the claim that the boy usually caused problems.
“So I asked if he would come with me to Lagos; he said yes. I brought him to Lagos and enrolled him in a school.
“But I observed that sometimes, something would just enter into him which would make him to start destroying things at home. Also, he runs away from school. And when he comes back from school, he often sustains injuries.
“On Tuesday before the incident happened, I was told he had been expelled from school. When he got back from school, he tore all his books and said they had expelled him from school.”
It was gathered that the incident prompted Charity to torture the boy and inflicted injuries on him.
The CP, Imohimi, said, “The ordeal of the little boy came to the fore when on May 9, 2018, around 9am, the suspect use horsewhip to flog the child, inflicting injuries all over his body. She thereafter locked him in her one-room apartment with his two hands tied behind his back and left for her shop.
“The boy cried and shouted for help which made one Peter Aluku to call the police. When the police team arrived, they broke the door of the house and rescued the child.”
Imohimi said the suspect would be charged to the Special and Sexual Offences Court as soon as investigation was concluded.