File photo: The boy's father and stepmother were arrested but later granted bail
A bible-believing Christian father at New Nkosukum, Mankessim, Central Region, has, for the past two years, caged his 16-year-old son, Samuel Kofi Ntsiful, in a stinky poorly-ventilated 10x10 room, just waiting for him to die.
Mr Amos Ntsiful, a 52-year-old carpenter, who claimed his late wife – the boy’s biological mother – transferred her “witchcraft” to their son, thus, the teenager’s rash- and pus-riddled body, said it was revealed to him in a dream that both his deceased spouse and the little boy, were his spiritual adversaries.
Mr Adu Gyamfi, News editor of Mankessim-based Osagyefo FM, who first broke the story, told sit-in host of Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show, Benjamin Akakpo, on Thursday, 20 September 2018 that he could not stand the pig-sty stench that hit him upon entering the little boy’s enclosure, while doing the story.
According to the local journalist, had he not been familiar with the stench of poultry farms and pig sties, he would never have been able to suffer the smell in the boy’s poorly kept, unclean and stuffy room, where he had been left for dead.
Confirming the story to Benjamin Akakpo, Superintendent Augustine Mensah, who is the District Commander of the Mankessim District Police Command, said on the day the police went to the couple’s home to ascertain the veracity of the tip-off they got from an anonymous neighbour: “We saw the boy in a very deplorable state – sick”.
“He had sat at one place on a kitchen stool for so long that he cannot stretch the legs, the legs are folded and all his body is covered with rashes from hair to toe and the room in which the boy is living, even animals, excuse me to say, will not be kept in that place”, adding that: “The stench was unbearable”.
According to the police, both the boy’s father and his current wife, Agnes (the boy’s stepmother), insist the now-paralysed teenager is the progeny of witchcraft and wizardry, thus, his isolation and poor treatment.
Upon returning from church and meeting the police in their home conducting investigations, the father of the boy, according to Supt. Mensah, got infuriated by the invasion of his home and insisted he had to isolate his son because he was a wizard.
The couple were arrested but later granted bail so that they could go and take care of the teenager. The wife of Mr Ntsiful has, however, gone into hiding after the bail.
