Child Abuse: Aunt inflicts injuries on 12-year-old nephew for “being a wizard”
A 45-year-old woman has landed in hot waters for allegedly inflicting cuts on her 12-year-old nephew whom she accused of “being a wizard.”
Police arrested Charity Iyonetu on Tuesday, after her victim, Chinonye Iyonetu reported the abuse.
Chinonye told the police that Charity is her father’s elder sister, with whom he had been living since 2016, at her Animal Kingdom, close to Seme Border, Lagos abode.
The Imo state native said his aunt always maltreated him over claims that he is a wizard.
State police commissioner Edgal Imohimi said Chinonye’s plight at his aunt’s hands was made public on May 9, when she allegedly used horse whip a.k.a Koboko, to flog him.
She allegedly proceeded to lock the little boy in her one room apartment with his two hands tied behind his back and left to her shop.
The boy’s cry and shout for help led one Peter Aluku to call the Police.
Charity,a mother of two, told the police that she was told that Chinonye’s father did not care about him because “the boy is possessed.”
“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,” she said.
“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.”
Chinonye, whose mother was said to have abandoned him without any trace, has suffered injuries on several parts of his body as a result of the beating he suffered.
Imohimi said that Charity would be charged to the Special and Sexual Offences Court as soon as investigation was concluded.
