… distraught couple complain of frustration in getting cure for the lady’s strange illness.
… Biological father of lady expressed shock at abominable act of the mother, his estranged wife.
Okafor Ofiebor
In what can be considered the highest form of wickedness, a mother and her new husband in Udophori community, Bomadi, Bomadi local Government Area of Delta State on Friday conspired with to throw their 26-year-old crippled daughter into forest over her disability.
Their intention was that the lady, a university graduate, will die in the forest before she will be discovered by anybody.
To achieve this aim, the couple ensured that the lady was bounded hands and legs when she was abandoned in the forest which also housed the community shrine.
However, the lady was not destined to die, as some members of the vigilance group of the community saw her where she was struggling for life in the bush and took her back home.
Inquiries by the vigilance group members led to the discovery of the the couple that threw the lady into the bush in Bomadi. It was gathered that the wicked deed of the couple was reported to the elders of the Community who subsequently summoned them.
The mother of the young lady, whose name was given as Opuere, told the Elders that she hails from Enekorah community, also in Bomadi.
Though she cannot defend her action before the elders, this magazine however gathered that the neighbours to the couple said the stepmother and her husband took the action because they got tired of spending ‘so much money in treating the lady who is now crippled and is also afflicted with an illness they described as ‘strange.’
Hence, they decided as a last resort. to dump her the village shrine to die.
Corroborating this claim, the new husband of the mother of the girls also confessed that the lady is not his child, and as such, the financial responsibility of taking care of her has become a burden to him. He said this was why he agreed with the mother to dump the lady at the sacred forest in Udophori community to die.
The mother of the crippled University graduate lady and her new husband before the Elders’ council in Udophori Community, Bomadi.
But the biological father of the girl who hails from Aleibiri, in the same community, told the Elders that he was shocked by the incident as his daughter was not born crippled.
According to him, the lady was lived with his relative in Lagos where she attended a University. He added that her problem began when she came home after graduation and went and live with her mother for a year.
“One day I got a message from my former wife that my daughter is sick. When I got there, I discovered she can’t walk again all of a sudden. So, I took her to different places for treatment until my daughter said she should be taken back to her mother, that she is the one that knows what happened to her.
“Her continuous persistence made me to take her to the mum and her husband. I am surprised to hear this side of the story,” he lamented.
After hearing from all sides, it was learnt that elders of Community described the action of the couple as a desecration of their land for which they must be punished.
However, the couple were handed over to the Bomadi Divisional Police headquarters for punishment.
As at the time of filing this report, our correspondent was yet to get the official reaction from the Delta State Police Command.