Narrating his ordeal, Ukeme said that he experienced various degrees of maltreatment since his father had divorced his mother. When the father married another woman and also divorced her, he accused his son of being responsible for the collapse of his second marriage and branded him a witch.
Ukeme said that his father declared him insane and took to an unknown place that he later found out was the home of a herbalist.
According to the young man, the herbalist tortured people and forced them to confess to being witches before ‘deliverance.’ Ukeme said that he had spent one year in the herbalist’s home, living in horrible conditions.
Daily Independent has learnt that Ukeme is now sustained by kind-hearted people in the neighbourhood, who do not believe that the young man a witch or insane.
A relative, who pleaded for anonymity, revealed that Ukeme’s latest ordeal came when he cut a branch of Moringa tree in the family compound, which he intended to use in treating malaria.
“When Ukeme’s father Christopher James Udoete, popularly called play boy, came back to the village and noticed the dismembered branches and inquired, he was informed that Ukeme used the leaves for malaria concoction, he promised to dismember the boy. He left the house only to return a few hours later with some boys.
“Ukeme was held down, bound with ropes and locked in an empty room and beaten throughout the night with all kinds of things including chains and pestles and his hand was later forced into raw acid,” the relative said.
When contacted, Christopher James Udoete admitted that Ukeme is his son but insisted that he was insane and terrorized people in the area.
“Ukeme is my son; he was once taken to the psychiatric hospital because of his health. He is undergoing treatments for the hands. The wounds in his hands are not as a result of beatings,” he said.
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