IT would appear that quite a number of Nigerians are getting trapped in the web of rational limitations these days. And it seems that issues bordering on socioeconomic challenges are beginning to occasion significant impairment of people’s ability to subject their decisions and actions to reason. It may appear rather difficult to comprehend an ordinarily far-fetched incident of a father battering his eight-week-old baby so severely that one of its forearms had to be amputated, but that precisely was what one Confidence Amatobi allegedly did to little baby Miracle in Imo State. Amatobi reportedly carried out the awkward and weird assault that led to his child’s arm being fractured and later amputated because the little baby was disturbing his sleep!
This patently cruel act and the motivation for it are yet surreal. For instance, if the grievous assault was meant to correct the baby, there is the veritable question whether an eight-week-old baby has the body to receive, and the mental capacity to appreciate, the import of corporal punishment. This incident is not just weird and callous, it is also the height of heartlessness. It epitomises child abuse of the worst kind. A true parent in the same circumstance would have played with the baby, come up with a lullaby or otherwise rocked the baby to sleep, and that would have allowed him to rest too. But Amatobi chose to be impulsive and bestial. If he could do this to his own child, who really can predict what he could do to another person’s child?
This bizarre incident tends to lend credence to the claim by psychiatrists that a lot of people on the streets have mental issues. Certainly, no one in his right senses would do to any child what Amatobi did to his own baby. Pray, how would a father attack and assault a hapless little baby and cause the arm to be amputated because the baby allegedly disturbed his sleep if not because of some agonizing mental situation and disturbance? Why and how did the father think attacking the baby in such a vicious manner would make him to sleep well? It is diminishing to humanity that an assault occasioning grievous bodily injury was carried out by a parent on an eight-week-old instead of cuddling the baby and playing with it!
A baby that was born without any deformity has now become physically challenged very early in life by reason of the thoughtless and barbarous conduct of an irresponsible father. Definitely, this freakish incident speaks to the growing mental health condition of some Nigerians on account of the difficulties associated with life and living in the country today. It is, therefore, important and apposite to get to the root of what caused Amatobi to have resorted to this inhuman and unfatherly conduct. Evidently, the man has to be saved from himself and prevented from doing harm and constituting further danger to the society.
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Against the backdrop of the lacklustre performance of successive governments in the country, it is necessary for citizens to begin to moderate their expectations from the government so that in the likely event of its failure to deliver, they can still retain their sanity as the impact of the disappointment and frustration will be significantly lessened by the qualified anticipations. The foregoing suggestion is meant to reduce the shock arising from official failure to fulfill the expectations of the citizenry; it is by no means a licence for the government to shirk its responsibilities. Indeed, we enjoin the government to up its ante and address present agonies of poor living conditions, properly catering to the mental health and welfare of Nigerians.
Meanwhile, should Confidence Amatobi be medically certified to be of stable mind, he should be prosecuted and made to face the wrath of the law for the heinous crime he has committed against humanity. Fortunately, the Child Rights Act has been operational in Imo State since 2004. The suspect should be tried under the Child Rights Act and other extant laws where he can get maximum punishment for his eccentric and evil act.
