Last Friday, December 9, 2016, people
across the country and beyond were alerted to the news of a 16-year-old
boy, identified as Aduragbemi, who was found in-between two walls (about
10 inches apart) in the Oduduwa Area, New Town in Ondo Kingdom, Ondo
State.
When the incident happened, there was a
barrage of questions on the minds of people who came across it, as to
how he entered such a narrow space, who he was; where he came from; was
he a normal human being or a demon; could he also be a witch that fell
from the sky, and many of such questions.
Well, it’s been eight days since he was
rescued and normalcy has since returned to the area, but the tortuous
experience the boy subjected the occupants of the house to may not go
away quickly.
“We were already looking for another
accommodation, because it was strange for human voice to be coming out
of a fence wall for three days; non-stop, throughout the day and at
night,” one of the residents, who identified herself simply as Becky,
said.
When our correspondent visited the
premises on Akinyosoye Street on Wednesday, the tenants looked relieved,
given the nightmares they said they had for the three days the boy
spent in-between the wall of their fence and that of the adjoining
property.
They said they were already thinking a ghost had arrived in their community as the situation was completely strange to them.
She said, “We never knew anyone was
there. So, when the noise refused to stop and was unbearable, I told my
friends to start looking for accommodation for me beause it was becoming
scary that we would be hearing a strange voice from in-between walls.
Could it be a ghost, I once asked myself.
It has never happened before and I don’t think I would forget the experience of those three days.
“Initially, we laughed when the person
was talking incoherently, because he was fond of repeating anything
people around said. We, in our compound, thought the voice was from the
shops on the other side, so we confronted them to know who was doing
that, but they said they also thought it was from our compound, or maybe
we had a visitor.
“That was when we sensed trouble. We
also realised that in the night when the shops would have closed, the
voice persisted and the person was saying meaningless things, like ‘my
name is Judas Iscariot; I’m Jesus; I was the one who killed Jesus, bring
your gaari (cassava flakes), etc.
It became unbearable and I couldn’t wait
to run away. We thought we were being haunted by some ghosts, because
it was very strange.”
She recalled that there were times they
couldn’t sleep in the night and they had to bring out their seats in the
midnight to sit outside. “It was scary to remain indoors, with the kind
of things he was saying at that time of the night, so, sometimes we all
came out to sit down outside; it felt safer,” she added.
However, their troubles came to an end
that Friday afternoon when the boy’s noise became unbearable and they
alerted the police, since the owner of the house could not be reached.
With the help of neighbours and passersby, they broke the wall and there
he was, naked and looking very emaciated.
He was taken to the police station and moments later, his mother, arrived at the scene and she was directed to the police.
“We learnt the boy had mental issues,
because people who knew him confirmed that he was fond of going to hide
himself and doing strange things,” Becky added.
She explained that on Wednesday, one of
their neighbours had said she saw the boy running towards their house
naked, around 11pm, and that even though it remained uncertain how
exactly the boy got in-between the walls, he apparently climbed their
fence and fell inside that night, more so that they started hearing the
voice from that Wednesday night.
Findings by Saturday PUNCH revealed that
the boy, an Indian hemp smoker, had been undergoing treatment for
mental illness since the past three years. The place where he was found
is some distance from where his mother lived.
He was then taken to a church, and after some efforts, the head of the church called his mother to come and take him away.
When our correspondent visited the head
of the church, Prophetess Dorcas Adebayo, she admitted to being the one
taking care of the boy but that she had to release him having told the
mother what she needed to know about the cause of the boy’s problem.
“That incident happened three days after I discharged him from here and I learnt she took him to another place,” she added.
Meanwhile, the house where the boy’s
mother lived at 11, Okegboyi Street, was locked when our correspondent
visited, and according to neighbours, their whereabouts remained
unknown.
The Ondo State Police Public Relations
Officer, Femi Joseph, said the mother of the boy had been advised to
take him for immediate medical care “as he looked so emaciated.”
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