When Thankgod Nwabisi, 23, left his village in Adani, Uzo-Uwani L.G.A of Enugu State to serve as an apprentice to an auto parts dealer in Ladipo, Lagos, popularly called Elopee, members of his family heaved a sigh of relief, believing that their only child was making a positive headway in life.

Little did they know that the secondary school holder will end up being traumatized by his master. He was thoroughly tortured, tied with ropes and dumped inside a room in the master’s house for about ten days without food or water. According to him, he was accused of not reconciling their sale’s book properly resulting in the loss of N4,000.

The ugly incident which took place at Number 1, Bisi Yusuf area, Kainde in Ayobo, a suburb of Lagos State, aroused the anger of their neighbours who promptly alerted policemen on patrol from Ayobo division and they swiftly responded. The eagle-eyed policemen reportedly broke into the premises after making frantic calls without response while the agonising cries of pain was coming from one of the rooms in the house.

When they succeeded in gaining entry into the building, they were shocked to see a 23-year-old boy, tied hands and legs and dumped like an animal in one corner of the room. He had bruises all over his body and his head was smeared with caked blood. They quickly rescued the poor boy and while searching the house, they saw a female teenager who claimed to be a relation to the wife of his master and they took all of them to their station for questioning.

His plight

Police sources said while narrating his plight, the boy disclosed that his master, Elochukwu Ikwueze, is from Akama-Oye in Eziagu L.G.A. of Enugu State. According to sources, the boy signed agreement to serve the man for seven years, and he had already served five years. They were living in a two-room apartment at Number 43, Eyegun Street, Mafoluku, Lagos, before his master got married and moved to his own house at Ayobo. They normally spent weekdays at Mafoluku but always spent weekends in the man’s house at Ayobo.

The boy narrated that on Sunday, 25th of August, while they were at Ayobo, they all embarked on cleaning the house and its surroundings in the morning. They continued with the exercise till evening and when he requested for food, both his master and his wife ignored him.

He said his master later started questioning him about their sales the previous day and he explained everything to him. “He complained that about N4,000 was missing from a sale of N28,000 we made but I explained everything to him yet, he insisted that the money was missing. Later, I went into my room.

Few minutes later, he came into the room, armed with a huge stick and started beating me. He called on my second and both of them tied my hands and legs with a rope, dragged me into the kitchen and locked the place up. I was abandoned inside the kitchen for about three days until I noticed that somebody slipped a plate of food through an opening to me.

Hungrily, I ate the food. I was defecating and urinating inside the same place until seven days later when the pains became unbearable. I then started crying and raising my voice, calling for help. It was then that I knew that the small girl living with us, a relation of my master’s wife, was also left in the house and she was the person that slipped food into the kitchen for me.

How he was rescued

“After sometime, I overheard people shouting at out gate, calling for the door to be opened. Later, they broke into the premises and I saw they were policemen. They rescued me and took both of us to their station where I narrated all that happened to me.”

Crime Guard gathered that after policemen broke into the house, they found the female teenager in the parlour. She led them to the kitchen where they saw the boy, tied like a goat with splashes of his urine and excreta all over the room. The divisional police officer, Musa Lariski, reportedly directed his men to quickly rush the boy to the nearest hospital where he was given proper medical attention before he was brought back to the station.

It was learnt that since then, all efforts made by detectives to trace the owner of the house and his wife yielded negative results. A team of policemen were also said to had gone to his shop at Ladipo Market only to discover that he had not shown his face since the the boy was rescued from his house. It was gathered that one of the market leaders assured the police that they will trace his whereabouts and bring him to the station.

Meanwhile, when Crime Guard had a brief encounter with the distraught boy, he was crying and lamenting the fate that befell him. In tears he said, “My fear is that he has my identity card and he may fram me up. I did not take even a kobo from his money; he was only trying to avoid settling me after my stewardship.

“That is how he has been treating all the boys that suffered for him; he will frame you and deny you reaping the reward of your stewardship. Whatever happened, I am happy with the police for rescuing me alive. Who knows what could have happened to me?”

•Credit (except for amended headline and minor editing): Saturday Vanguard. Photo shows Thankgod Nwabisi before the police rescued him.

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