…Says genitals cut out of malice
The nine-year-old boy, whose penis was cut off during an ill-fated circumcision, is suffering excruciating pains and at health risk, his mother, Mrs. Eudora Michael, 35, cried out Monday.
The mother, who spoke at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, said that she and her husband were poor and could not afford the specialized care the baby needed to stay alive.
She said: “Since this sad incident occurred in February this year, we have been running around to raise money. We have borrowed up and down and are in big debt. My husband has gone to the village to gather money but people are not forthcoming.
“People who had given us loan are not willing to give us more when we have not paid what we borrowed.
“We are even surviving at the mercy of doctors who are spending their own money when they see that we are unable to provide the drugs they prescribe, the baby is in pains, always crying he cannot urinate and his bladder is swollen.
“I have to stand near the bed or bend down to breastfeed him so that the pipes connected into his genitals doesn’t shift and go off and further complicate the situation”.
She appealed to the wife of Bayelsa Governor, Dr.Rachael Dickson, and other kind-hearted Nigerians to assist financially with medical bills to save her baby.
She insisted that her husband was jobless and had no means to settle the exorbitant medical cost.
Medical experts at the hospital said the baby lost a lot of blood, but had been stabilised adding that he might be scheduled for corrective plastic surgery to reconstruct the urinary system to enable him pass urine normally.
Michael accused her step-father Mr. Ziworitin Keke, 59, of deliberately cutting off the baby’s penis during circumcision.
The incident occurred at Odenwari, a coastal community in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa on February 5.
Michael, a mother of eight children, four male and four female noted that the nine month old Oyintari was her first child to be circumcised by Keke.
She claimed that Keke ‘did it out of ‘malice’, explaining that the pains caused by the incident was too excruciating for a nine month old boy to bear.
“It is not a mistake at all as it is being speculated. On that day I was asleep and the man sent a message that I should bring my baby for circumcision. My husband is still angry because I didn’t tell him.
“My husband and I had no immediate plan to circumcise our baby that day, because he has been sick since birth. I carried the baby to him and he cut off his genitals completely after checking the length.
“I was disturbed because the baby cried much more than two other babies he had circumcised without complications. When I checked the boy I saw the cut, he said that the penis shrunk inside and will come out after treatment.
“I was not convinced. I knew there was danger and I took my baby to a health centre outside our community at Krokrosei after he told me to leave the baby with him for three weeks,” she said.
But Keke’s cousin and activist, Morris Alagoa, said it was a mistake adding that the old man was popular in the community for his free services.
“He was only trying to help”, Alagoa said adding that it was not true that his cousin was known for chopping off penises during circumcision.
Alagoa said: “The man in question is my cousin and he is like a father to the boy. The incident is like that of a driver with 40 years-experiences having an accident.
“It is really sad and unfortunate that his free services to over 700 children from neighboring communities have been brought into this ugly scenario.
“He is a fisherman and engaged in logging of woods for a living. He is even a physically challenge man that offered circumcision services to the community.”
The police said they were investigating the matter.
