Custodial dad who "sent mother away" arrested for torturing, abandoning 4-year-old son (Lagos, Nigeria)

The details may differ from culture to culture and from country to country--just as they do from one individual case to the next. But for the most part, these cases are broadly the same.

Once again, we have a violent, abusive controlling father who somehow eliminates the mother from the picture. In the west, it might be through the family courts, where mothers are (mistakenly) led to believe that they have legal rights over their children. In other cases, especially in more conservative countries that are more openly patriarchal, and where women are divorced and driven out of the home by the husband's say so--women will lose their children in a more "informal" and openly violent manner.

The end result in too many cases is more or less the same. The abusive father now has custody (full possession) of the child. So what does he do? Because the motivation is not love, but control and/or hatred of the mother, he abuses the child without mercy. Even abandons the child as long as HE is the one doing the abandoning.

Naïve people would assume that he could have left the child with the mother then, if he wasn't interested in caring for the child. Wrong. He had no interest in caring for anybody. But that's not the point. It was all about hurting and controlling mom and having a free punching bag.

Dad is identified as SIKIRU MUSTAPHA.

http://pulse.ng/gist/child-abuse-father-in-soup-for-torturing-4-yr-old-son-id3853822.html

Father in soup for torturing 4-yr-old-son

A father has been arrested for severely torturing his 4-year-old son in Lagos.

Published: 12.45 , Refreshed: 13.18
Isaac Dachen

A middle aged man, Sikiru Mustapha, has been arrested for severely torturing his four-year-old son and abandoning the toddler at a bus stop in the Iwaya area of Yaba, Lagos.

There were tears in the eyes of onlookers who saw the kid, identified as Lekan, with bruises all over his body when he was picked up by a neighbour and handed him over to a non-governmental agency who then took him to the police at the Sabo Police Division.

The police acted fast on this and subsequently arrested the recalcitrant father.

According to another neighbour of the man, Mustapha had sent the boy's mother away and married a new wife who has been maltreating the kid with the ultimate being the recent incident.

“Lekan has a long history of torture from his father. He is poorly taken care of, beaten and left to wander in the area. As young as he is, the father beats him without mercy. On Tuesday, (June 9), he was beaten up as usual. But this time, he was abandoned at a bus station.

One of the residents of this area found him and took him to an NGO. He was then taken to the Sabo Police Division, and the police arrested the father.

"Sikiru has a new wife who is a nursing mother. She should have cautioned her husband against maltreating the boy, but she did not."

The boy has been taken to a children's hospital in Surulere and is said to be recuperating while the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Kenneth Nwosu says his father has been charged to court.

"We arrested the suspect for maltreating his son. He has been taken to court in company with some personnel from the Lagos State Ministry of Justice."