BEVERLY HILLS, August 15, (THEWILL) – Kano State Police Command have rescued Ahmed Amadu, a 30-year old man from the garage of his parents’ house where he had been locked up for three years.
Mr Aminu’s father and step-mother have been arrested and police say further investigations are under way.
In a horrific video shared on social media, an emaciated Mr Aminu, too frail to walk, was assisted into a vehicle as he was taken to hospital. He had visible calluses on his knees and his bones were apparent through the little flesh left on him.
“We found Aminu in a terrible situation, urinating and excreting in same spot without (being) given any food and looking like he was going to die at any moment,” Haruna Ayagi, head of the Human Rights Network NGO, said.
This is the second time this week a victim has been rescued from horrific conditions in their parents’ house in Nigeria. On Wednesday, police in north-western Kebbi state rescued a 10-year-old boy from an animal pen where he had been kept for two years by his parents.
Police said Amadu had been locked up by his parents on suspicion of drug abuse and left without proper food and health care.
Northern Nigeria has a drug addiction problem but with few state-funded facilities, some parents are resorting to self-help for their troublesome children. Some parents have sent their children with drug problems to private religious rehabilitation centres, but some of those have been raided by officials who described them as “torture houses”.
