CHINEDU WOSU, YENAGOA
Following the circumcision – gone wrong of Oyintari Michael, a nine months-old boy, by a 59 year-old herbalist in a Bayelsa Community, the mother of the boy, Mrs. Eudora Michael, on Tuesday cried out to the wife of the governor, Dr. Rachael Dickson for help.
Michael’s penis was cut off during the ill-fated circumcision by the herbalist in his community in Southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa State last week. He is said to be presently at the mercy of death.
The woman also said she and the husband cannot to afford the medical bills needed to make their son live again.
She also appealed to kind hearted Nigerians to assist financially with medical bills to save her baby, stressing that her jobless husband had no means to settle the high medical bills.
The sad mother who was seen lamenting at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa said her husband was indigent and cannot afford the cost of the specialized care the baby needs to stay alive.
“Since this sad incident occurred in February this year, we have been running around to raise money, we have borrowed up and down and have incurred huge debts. My husband has gone to the village to gather money but people are not forthcoming.
According to her, people who had given us loan are not willing to give us more when we have not paid what we borrowed before.
“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 to his genitals do not shift and go off and further complicate the situation,” she said
She appealed to the wife of the Bayelsa State Governor, Dr Rachael Dickson, and kind hearted Nigerians to assist financially with medical bills to save her baby, insisting with tears flowing down her face that her jobless husband had no means to settle the exorbitant medical cost.
The baby, according to medical sources at the hospital, lost a lot of blood, but has been stabilized and may 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 her nine month old baby’s penis during circumcision.
It will be recalled that the incident occurred at Odenwari, a coastal settlement in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State on February 5, 2017.
Michael, a mother of eight children, four male and four female noted that the nine month old Master Oyintari is her first child to be circumcised by Keke.
Michael alleged that Keke ‘did it out of ‘malice’.
She explained 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 its 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 and I saw the cut, but 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.
She alleged that her step father had earlier raped her 13 year old girl and got her pregnant and the product of that sinful act, a baby boy is with her mother, “this time he wants my son to die.”
According to her, the rape of her 13 year old daughter was not reported to the Police, but the church where her step-father functions as a clergyman suspended him for two years as a punishment.
Meanwhile authorities of the Bayelsa State Police Command have confirmed the arrest of Keke.
Asinim Butswat , a Deputy Superintendent of Police confirmed the development.
