13-year-old boy hangs self to protest mum’s abuse

A thirteen-year-old boy has been found dead in an uncompleted building beside his home after his mother allegedly rained abuses on him. The teenager, simply identified as Rokeeb, was found hanging on a noose last Monday, around 9am, at 25 Ekimogun Street, Apelehin under Isokan community in Bariga area of Lagos. Neighbours told Saturday Sun that Rokeeb could have sunk into depression after his mother launched a tirade at him in which, she allegedly told him to go hang himself if he liked. On the fateful day, no one expected that such a terrible thing would happen, because Rokeeb was his usual self, doing the call to prayer in the local mosque situated at Kehinde lane, close to his house. Rokeeb’s Quranic teacher simply known as Alfa Sambo, said the boy, after performing the religious assignment that morning continued reading the Quran in mosque, but suddenly left when he saw his mother going out. “He told Alfa that he wants to go and help his mother carry her load,” an eyewitness told Saturday Sun. “Rokeeb’s mother sells noodles at a bus stop in Bariga. Few minutes after, we heard the mother shouting and abusing the boy, I was confused as to what could have gone wrong with Rokeeb and his mother. But I didn’t go out to confirm what the cause of the outburst was.” Another neighbour said one of Rokeeb’s siblings told her that the deceased asked their mother for money, but she told him she did not have. Then Rokeeb started grumbling and complaining about life, saying that he was tired of living. That apparently annoyed the mother and made her reply in anger that if he was tired of life he should go and hang himself, the neighbour said. Moments later, Rokeeb’s body was found dangling from the ceiling in an uncompleted building near the house. “We heard some residents shouting for help that Monday morning,” a resident who simply identified himself as Kunle, said, adding: “we found Rokeeb hanging and struggling for breath. We took him down and rushed him to Gbagada General Hospital, but he died at the emergency section before medical help could get to him.” Neighbours said Rokeeb’s mother is a single mother of three. Rokeeb was a product of her first marriage, which crashed. She remarried and had the last two children. That marriage also crashed, so, currently she is not with any man, one said. Saturday Sun’s efforts to reach the woman for comments were unsuccessful as she was said to have been at large, since the incident. No one could tell her whereabouts by press time.]]>