A 13-year-old boy, Ovey Friday, whose hands were allegedly burnt by a herbalist on the prompting of his stepmother in Nasarawa State, has narrated how he ended up in hospital.
Speaking in an interview with Northern City News on his hospital bed at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, on Thursday, the victim said his troubles began when his stepmother, Mrs Mercy Jummai, 35, who is heavily pregnant, accused him of being a wizard.
According to him, Mercy, whom he lives with in the Wulko community in the Nasarawa-Eggon Local Government Area of the state, raised the alarm that he made love to her in her dream.
He said, “My stepmother said she was always seeing me making love to her in her dream, but I told her that it was not true.
“So, she started threatening me, saying that I would not stay in the same house with her. That was when she said she would take me to a native doctor’s house.
“The native doctor, who is a Fulani man, picked a stone and threw it at me. After that, he rubbed the stone on me and tied my two hands with a rope.
“Then, he brought charcoals out of the fire and poured it on me and tied my hands, asking me to confess that I was a wizard and a member of a secret society. But I told him that I was innocent of what he was accusing me of.
“He brought out powdered pepper and poured it into the fire while the smoke smeared all over my face, with my hands burning.
“After that, he fetched charcoals from fire (he did this three times), that was when I began to pray to God. When he saw that I was praying, he came back and untied the rope from my hands, but my wrists, palms and fingers were already badly burnt.
