travails of 11 year old boy left to die on street by father

For the last two years, 11-year-old Promise Christian has been living on the streets of Ipaja-Ayobo, Lagos. Roadsides, front of shops and street corners, all served as young Promise’s bed as he scrounged for survival, begged for food, living on the mercy and magnanimity of residents of the area. When our correspondent and child rights activist, Mrs. Esther Ogwu, met with the boy and he narrated his story, it was one that would move any heart to tears. Promise explained that his father, Emmanuel Christian, and mother were from Calabar, the Cross River State capital. He does not know his mother’s name and neither does he remember where the woman lives. In 2013, Promise’s life, which at the time was already filled with pain and suffering, suddenly changed for the worse. Aged nine, he found himself on the street, with no one in the world to take care of him. “My daddy beat me all the time,” he said as he showed our correspondent two large scars on both hands which he said he got from being burnt with a hot iron by his father. “But the night I saw him last, I did not do anything wrong,” he continued. Intelligent and smart in English far beyond her peers in Basic One, which he said was the last class he attended, Promise explained how he found himself on the street. “I woke up in the morning and my daddy had packed all his belongings. I was alone in the room. I did not know he was packing. I was afraid and I began to cry but I thought he would still come back. But he did not till today,” the boy said in halting sentences. He did not cry. But people who were around and listened as he narrated the story could not help but shed tears. Promise left the empty room he once shared with his father at Ipaja Ayobo in search of food. He found none. Yet he stayed around the house with the hope that his father would show up the following day. He never did. The hopelessness of his situation began to dawn on him gradually, when he realised a week later that his father had not shown up and nobody in the neighbourhood could give any information about the whereabouts of his father. Thus, Promise began his life as a homeless child on the streets of Ipaja Ayobo. Residents of the area said the boy sleeps in the front of shops and almost lost his life once when vigilantes caught him sleeping in a small bush beside the road. “They thought he was a robber and wanted to shoot him. But he fled and they later caught him,” a resident said. Narrating more terrible things he was exposed while sleeping on the streets, Promise said, “There was a time I slept in the front of a shop and I felt something on my body in the middle of the night. It was a snake. I screamed and ran away from the place. Some landlords on the street came out to see who was screaming but they did not allow me to stay in their houses.” But more than the frightening things he saw, seeing other children living normal lives broke the little boy. He said, “Anytime I see other children going to school. I always wish to be like them. I always close my eyes in the night and wish that my parents would just come one day and take me away. “I used to be afraid sleeping in the night before but after many months, I was no longer afraid. I was hungry all the time, so instead of being afraid, I was thinking of my hunger.” As months rolled by, Promise lost weight and became haggard as the only cloth on his back was given to him by a resident who took pity on him. A resident informed Ogwu of his plight and the boy was handed over to a woman, Mrs. Taiwo Ogunleke, who had previously taken over the daily feeding and care of the boy. Ogunleke, a widow, who had four children of her own, explained that there was a time some residents of Ipaja Ayobo wanted to drive the boy away from the area because they said he was constituting a nuisance. “I first got to hear about him through my children. They said he was sleeping on the street.That was when I decided to give him money for feeding daily. I bought him a pair of shoes and the boy started to call me ‘my mummy’. I was shocked when he prayed for me one day and said he would grow up to reward me for all I was doing for him. “I was so happy when I was told I could take him in. I was afraid to allow him to live with me fully because I was afraid of what people would say. “Now, he is like my own child. How could I not take pity on him when I am also a mother? I decided to enrol him in school till the government decides on his matter.” Ogunleke is a pepper seller at Ipaja-Ayobo. Ogwu tracked down one of Promise’ uncles, who knew about the boy’s state but did nothing. The uncle later provided the phone number of the boy’s father. When our correspondent contacted Christian on the phone, the man said his son was possessed. Christian said, “When he was still living with me, Promise, would always leave home. No matter what I did, he would always run away from home to beg for food outside. That was when I realised that there was an evil spirit tormenting him. “My job as a fish supplier does not allow me to stay at home most of the time. But anytime I come home, he was always away. I complained, I punished him, but he never stopped.” Asked why he burnt the boy with hot iron, Christian explained that “it was a mistake.” He said the day he packed out and abandoned Promise, the boy had left home as usual and he did everything he could to locate him but all his efforts were fruitless. Asked if he knew the boy had been living and surviving on the streets since he left, Christian fell silent. About Promise’s mother, Veronica, he said he only had a love affair with the mother and she became pregnant. “She was a cook in the canteen of the company I was working with in Apapa, Lagos at the time. “I don’t even know her surname. I already had someone else I intended to marry at the time, the pregnancy was a mistake. But after she gave birth to Promise, she married someone else. When the man Veronica married started to complain, I decided to go and take the boy. “I can no longer remember how I got to the street of the house where Veronica lives with her husband at Ikotun.” However, Ogwu has reported the case at the Ayobo Police Division, Lagos where the Divisional Police Officer has promised to track down the father of the boy. Ogwu said, “It is necessary for the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation to take action on the boy’s case and we have written a letter informing them about the boy’s state. I am confident the government will take custody of the boy for now. “At this point, our concern is the welfare of the boy. Obviously, the father no longer see his son as a human being he should take responsibility for. Abandoning one’s child for such a long time is criminal and we hope the police would handle the case as such.”