What would have made a woman so heartless as to mete out the kind of punishment that would lead to the death of her child? How stubborn or disobedient can a child be to warrant death as punishment?
These were the questions on the lips of nurses and doctors of St. Mary Hospital Gwagwalada, and police officers handling investigation in the matter.
The boy, Chiboy, was brought in to the hospital with his hands swollen and peeling. He was weak and could hardly breathe.
His eyes were wide open and he kept moaning. One could notice that he was surely in pains.
Unfortunately, efforts to save his life by the doctors at the hospital proved futile as he died a few hours later.
Chiboy’s mother, Rosemary Okeke was there as life slipped out of her 9-year-old boy. She could hardly believe that the’ little’ punishment she had given to her boy would lead to his death.
But what manner of punishment could lead to death?
Okeke, who said she was the pastor of Sabbath church called Yeshua, the King of Kings church said she had tied her son’s hands with a ‘china’ cloth and had in addition put ‘small pepper’ into his eyes for disobeying her and proving stubborn.
She said: “We wanted to go out. I saw him putting on his sandals and I noticed that the buckle has spoilt. I asked him what happened to his sandals and he said that the buckle was spoilt long ago whereas it had just spoilt. I told him that I have asked him never to lie to me again and said I will punish him till I come back with his brother from where we were going.
“I told him to ‘hang in the air’ but he refused to do the punishment. I brought out a whip and wanted to flog him but he started struggling with me.’’
Okeke said she was angry that her boy was proving stubborn and “he wanted to show me that he was stronger than me. That was when I brought out the pepper and put a little in his eyes. I also called his 15-year-old brother to help me tie his hands and I left him in my room.’
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Chiboy it was gathered stayed in the room from 7am 7.30pm crying and begging for forgiveness. But his tears fell on deaf ears as his mother who did not give him food paid him no attention.
“It was when I entered the house in the evening that I noticed that my son was not my son again. I shouted and called my neighbors who brought a car and took us to the hospital. The doctor said he won’t treat him unless we get report from the police station. So we rushed to the police station,” she added.
One of the patients at the hospital who saw the situation of the boy had called the police to report the incident and they were requested to come with the boy to the police station
It was further gathered that at the police station, the police took the boy to a nearby hospital, St Mary’s Hospital Gwagwalada.
‘’The hands were peeling off. And the eyes were wide open. The doctors were about to cut off his hands so that the infection will move to other places. The doctor said that the effect of the pepper had already gone to the brain,” a nurse who pleaded anonymity said.
Ironically, Okeke ended up not going to where she had initially planned to go before the issue of the sandals came up.
Many have been asking what would make a mother treat her own child the way she did.
“It was anger. I was just angry with him. It is just that the anger got out of hand,” she kept saying to herself.’
The anger surely got out of hand because the 32-year-old mother found herself losing a child and is presently in police net, at the Gwagwalada Divisional Headquarters.
Okeke has however denied the allegation that she planned to use the boy for rituals and swore to high heavens that Chiboy was her son.
“He is my son. His father is dead, he died long ago,” she said.
Okeke who lives in Angwan Hausawa in Gwagwalada said she had come to Gwagwalada to start a branch of her church and that she had been staying in the town for the past six months.
“We are yet to build the church. We have a land. We are hoping to put a batcher there and start off until we can build a church. I consult for people. That is how I survive.
They pay consultancy fee for N500 and sometimes give me money for items we need for prayers,” she added.
But that are not the crux the matter.
The matter is that Chiboy is dead. Dead by the hands of his mother who took her anger too far. She is now left with her 15-year-old child who will keep wondering why in the world he had helped his mother to tie up his brother.
She is also not free from the police who still wonder how a cloth could have caused terrible blisters to a child’s hands and eventually, death..
