Children accused of being witches are still being tortured and killed in cold blood despite the Child Right law which has been in force for many years now. In this report, our Correspondent, Joseph Kingston, takes a cursory look at the part played by care givers and parents, effect of abandoned ‘witch’ children on society vis-a viz cult activities, kidnapping and other forms of criminalities.
A five months old baby girl, Baby Fedora, and her sister, Blessing, who was just two years, were butchered by their biological mother some months ago at Ikot Eneobong, 8 miles in Calabar municipality for purportedly being ‘possessed’ with demonic spirit.
Investigations indicated that on that fateful day, the children’s mother, whose name was given simply as Mrs Temple Peters, had told her Rivers State-born husband, Mr Temple Peters that she was ‘praying’ with the kids.
In the course of the said ‘prayer’, she has shaven Baby Fedora’s head with a broken bottle and thereafter smashed her tender head on the floor even with an open Bible by her side. She then took hold of the other child, Blessing, and in the course of conducting exorcism on her, strangulated her to death.
The family Pastor of the Peters (name withheld) had told our reporter that the father of the children rushed to his house, panting, to inform him that the children’s mother had killed his two innocent kids.
“I rushed to their apartment and what I saw was as if I was dreaming. The baby’s head was scrapped probably with a broken bottle. The sitting room was messy with blood stains everywhere. I met her on top of the two years old Blessing with her full weight on the child shaking her terribly with an open Bible close to the girl’s head. By the time I shove her aside, I discovered the girl was stone dead.
“Branding children witches is a criminal offense and against the laws of our country, he does not deserve to be a free man because if all things are equal, he should be in jail for at least two years”.
“I confronted her but she told me she was trying to cast away demons from the children because any time she looks at them, she would see an old man in their eyes. She accused the husband of not being sensitive to the things of the spirit,” the Pastor had told this reporter.
Few months ago, six year old Effiong Lawson was beheaded, allegedly by his stepfather, Felix Lawson, 43, in Onna local government area of Akwa Ibom State. Effiong was accused of being a wizard whose assignment in the witchcraft world was said to include impoverishing the parents.
Effiong, who was sent out of his father’s home, had not eaten for three days. That fateful night, he sneaked into the backyard to beckon to his sister to help him with some crumbs of the food in the house but unknown to him, his father was at home.
Felix, on realizing it was his ‘witch son’ in the yard, left the food he was eating, pursued the hungry and weak lad with a cutlass and in one fell swoop, cut off his head.
Effiong’s headless body was later found in the pool of stagnant water behind one of the school blocks, adjacent Lawson’s home. The head was found in the nearby farm. It was indeed like a horror movies, yet it happened in Akwa Ibom State with the Child Rights Law in force.
Another victim of parental brutality to a ‘child-witch’ was that of a 12-year-old Mercy Frank, who was bath with acid by her biological mother for being a ‘witch.’ Fortunately, she survived the acid bath.
Before the incident, Mercy was a pupil in Atabong Primary School in Okobo local government area of Akwa Ibom state. The acid bath had completely damaged her mouth, breast and other parts of her body.
At the children ward of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), Mercy, who was brought to the hospital by security agents who picked her from the bush where she was dumped by her mother, was begging for food to keep body and soul together.
Her words: “I am from Atabong village. I am the second child in the family of four children. My mother poured acid solution on my body, which is why my mouth and my body are like this.
“One of our neighbours told my mother that I was a witch but I told her that I was not a witch. She took me to Apostolic Church in Atabong, Okobo and the pastor told her that I was a witch. When the pastor asked me if I was a witch, I told him I was not a witch.
“The pastor prayed and told my mother that I was a witch, then we went back home after the prayer. When we got home that night, my mother canned me seriously. Other neighbours begged her to let me be but she refused.
“Later at midnight, my mother took me to a bush and poured acid solution on me and dropped me by the roadside and left.”
Just last week, a child right group, Basic Child Rights Initiative (BCRI), said rescued three children aged 13, 11 and
witch 7, who were allegedly incarcerated at Asabanka, Idundun in Akpabuyo local government area of Cross River state.
Principal Council /Rights Activists, James Ibor, told our reporter that the father of the children, one Mr. Patrick Effiom, locked the children indoors for weeks over allegation of witchcraft. “He locked them up without food or water inside the place he used as poultry. He claimed that they were the
ones behind his misfortunes and they wrecked him financially .We have listened to his testimony which is highly inconsistent and incoherent. “Branding children witches is a criminal offense and against the laws of our country, he does not deserve to be a free man because if all things are equal, he should be in jail for at least two years. We know the laws of Nigeria made provision for the protection of children from this kind of treatment,” he said.
Another bad tale of torture of alleged child witches is that of two 8-year-old children from Okobo local government area, Akwa Ibom State, identified as Mary Odiong and Ekong Asua, who lived on the streets for one full month, after their relatives tortured them and sent them out of their homes for allegedly being witches and being responsible for the death of relatives and parents.
Odiong told Journalists that she was blamed for the death of her uncle who died in Okopedi village, of an ailment many suspected was AIDS, and that her people accused her of sending the AIDS virus to the man. This is ridiculous indeed.
“The people in my family called me and started asking me whether I was a witch and why I killed my uncle. I told them that I did not know anything about what they were talking about. They started beating me. They hit me with cutlasses. They cut my buttocks with knives.
After the beating became too much, I lost consciousness. Later, I woke up to find myself in a bush. I have been living on the streets since last month without food and shelter,” she said.In Esua’s case, his parents died from what has been described as a “strange ailment,” and afterwards, his uncles accused him of being a wizard, and blamed him for his parents’ death.
“My uncles told me that they went somewhere to find out why my parents died. They said they were told that I killed both of them through witchcraft. They tied my hands and started beating me up with native sugarcane and asked me to confess. https://orientdailynews.com.ng/cityscope/child-rights-law-unending-witch/ Lalasticlala seun mynd44 |
Continued “When I insisted that I knew nothing about the death of my parents, they took me to a bush, where I met Odiong. Both of us have been living on the streets since then,” he said.
Few months ago, 13 years old Patience Ita Bassey was almost slaughtered by her master, one Mr Asuquo Bassey alias Asukara, who resided at 21c Inyang Edem Street, off Mt. Zion Road, Calabar South for allegedly being the cause of the purported dwindling fortunes of the man.
Our reporter who visited Mr Bassey’s house was reliably informed by neighbours that the accused inflicted several matchet cuts on the girl, and was at the verge of killing her when her cry attracted neighbours who promptly rushed in to deliver the victim from imminent death.
The neighbours said they called in the police, after which the girl was rushed to General Hospital, Calabar where she received treatment. A neighbour, one Chief Orok Orok Duke, President of a Calabar-based NGO, Less Privileged Right Protection Organization, told this writer that his prompt intervention saved the life of the girl, and described such violence as unfortunate.
Investigations indicated that even the police are at a lost on how to handle the menace. A police source in Akwa Ibom State, who preferred not to be named, said the command was inundated with cases of violence against alleged ‘child-witches.’
“On several occasions, our men are called upon to rescue vulnerable persons, such as women, children and the elderly who are falsely accused of being witches, and who are being subjected to untold acts of torture and brutality by some criminal elements.
“A case in point is the rescue of two male children aged nine (9) and six (6) years. Mmenyene and Samuel who were branded as wizards in a village called Ikot Obio Asanga. They were rescued in a toilet having been locked up for 14 days without food and water.
“This followed a so-called prophesy that the children were wizards and responsible for the misfortune that had befallen the family. Those involved, the father and a prophetess had been picked up and charged to court,” he stated.
Recall that one Bishop Sunday William had alleged, some time ago, that Akwa Ibom state has about 2.3 million witches and wizards, majority of them, children.
The then Governor, Akpabio, was said to have expressed annoyance that a ‘Bishop’ would declare that 2.3 million witches existed in a state of less than 4 million people; leaving just 1.7 million of the population witch-free.
It was also said the ‘Bishop’ claimed to have helped parents kill about 110 “child-witches” at N400,000 per ‘child witch’. He was arrested at the instance of the state government and paraded at the State Police Headquarters, Ikot Akpan Abia, Uyo.
He told reporters, during interview, that he was not involved in the said killing of child witches in person but that he uses superior spiritual powers to destroy the spirit of witchcraft in possessed children, adding that since he started his work in 2007, he has so far destroyed the spirit in about 110 people.
But, former Governor Akpabio had dismissed the 2.3 million witches claim as hallucination of the highest order, positing that some of the alleged child witches may have confessed to being witches and wizards when they were tortured by their parents and church leaders.
“If you put a nail on my head and ask me to agree that I am a wizard, I would do that to save myself from torture. That is how these children are tortured to accept that they are witches and their parents would gladly throw them out of the house,” he had said.
Many more incidents of use of brute force on alleged child witches are rampant. Most of these troubles are traceable to spiritual leaders, who, instead of being solution, are themselves causes of broken homes and families.
These ‘men of God’ and ‘prophets’ seem to have employed the vulnerability and ignorance of their poor members to exploit them, using children as scapegoats. In nearly
all cases, it is children of poor members of Churches that are tagged ‘witches.’Orient Daily investigations indicated that in both Akwa Ibom and Cross River states for instance, the Child Right Act was signed into law as far back as December 5, 2008 and May 26, 2009 respectively. But, latest torture and killings of children in these two States show that the Child Rights Law may have lost steam and purpose.
As at today, alleged child-witches are still murdered with impunity right in the presence of law enforcement officers and government accredited clan/ village heads. Regrettably, State governments have remained helplessly passive and are yet to formally prosecute anybody who, by whatever means, inflict severe bodily harm on alleged ‘child witch.’
This writer could not lay hand on any document on the number of those prosecuted or punished as a result of violation of the Child Right law despite the fact that almost all the States of the federation had signed the Act into law.
Besides, checks showed that the problem of increased number of street children in our society is traced to the ‘child witch’ syndrome. Many of the street children are those who were sent away by parents and
care givers. They are today the bulk of notorious criminal gang called the ‘Skolombo boys’ in Calabar.
Investigations also indicated that most members of cult groups wrecking havoc in Calabar and causing residents to sleep with one eyes closed are grown up ‘child witches’ who were forced to become street children. Some of them are involved in brutal kidnapping and armed robbery incidents. These ‘child witches’ who now become street children, courtesy of the carelessness of parents, society and government, grow up to hate the society for being unkind to them.
Most of the challenges facing our society could be curtailed if government could rise to its responsibility by holistically implementing the Child Right Law to stem the tide of street kids and by extension, criminalities. And, until government begin to punish offenders, accused child-witches would continue to pass through the valley of shadow of death in the hands of parents, prophets and care givers. The number of street kids could continue to multiply with venom of hatred unleashed on innocent residents in our streets if Nigerian authorities continue to remain passive.  Lalasticlala seun Mynd44 |
