A 45-year-old woman, Rahama Sani, is in police net for allegedly subjecting her adopted six-year-old boy to various inhuman and degrading treatments.
Katsina State Commissioner of Police, Sanusi Buba, who stated this while parading the suspect along with seven other groups of suspected criminals, warned parents to squarely face the upbringing of their children, rather than entrust them to the hands of a third party.
Parading the various suspects, the Commissioner of Police, through the command’s spokesperson, Gambo Isah, said that the woman was arrested on the 15th of September at Kwado quarters in the metropolis.
According to him, “in the course of investigation, the victim (the boy) was found with injuries on his body and a fractured right leg. He was taken to the General hospital in Katsina for treatment.”
The 45-year-old suspect denied all the allegations, especially regarding the fracture, body injuries, and the various inhuman treatments meted unto the boy throughout the 9 months that he had been in her custody.
Rahma further hinted that, “it was the father of the boy that brought him to me, requesting for motherly care, since he (the father) had separated from the wife and presently remarried to another woman who has refused to stay with the boy in the same house.”
On the behaviour of the boy, Rahama said the father alleged that the boy is not stubborn, but has an unusual character of scratching the wall paint to eat and beats other children around.
She also denied the alleged fracture on the boy’s leg saying, “What happened was that, I called someone to circumcise him, as part of efforts to enroll him to school, as the man was about to commence his work, the boy started shouting, which I ordered that the boy be released. It was when he was running that, he unfortunately fell down and had a short crack in his bone. There is nothing like a fracture on his leg. Those body injuries were even there before I adopted him. Even now, if that bandage should be unwrapped, you will discover no fracture there. It shocks me to hear that I am responsible for cutting rather, tempering with the boy’s manhood, fractured him and all the other allegations. There is nothing like that.”
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The woman also added that throughout the boy’s 9 months stay with her, spanning the lockdown period, the boy’s father visited him and even picked him up during the Sallah period, while he stayed with the father for six days before bringing him back.
She further stressed that, throughout the boy’s stay with her, “I have never seen his father’s relatives. His father in particular has never given me money for his upkeep, not even a 20 naira detergent for me to wash his clothes. I am not guilty of all the allegations levelled against me. I only tried to assist the boy”.
Other suspected criminals paraded were kidnappers, cattle rustlers, drug dealers, among others.
CP Buba, therefore, said the woman and the other suspects will be charged to court as soon as they conclude ongoing investigations.
(Editor: Ifeanyi Mark)
