The Kano State Police Command has rescued a 30-year-old man from a garage in his parents’ house in Kano, where he had been locked up for three years.
Ahmed Aminu, was discovered in the Farawa Quarters, Kumbotso LGA of Kano State, after a police raid on the family’s residence.
Neighbours had alerted a local NGO about his predicament and the police were then called.
Mr Aminu’s father and step-mother have been arrested and police say further investigations are under way.
In a video shared on social media, a horribly emaciated Aminu, too frail to walk, was assisted into a vehicle as he was taken to hospital.
He had visible calluses on his knees and his bones were apparent through the little flesh left on him.
“We found Aminu in a terrible situation, urinating and excreting in same spot without [being] given any food and looking like he was going to die at any moment,” Haruna Ayagi, head of the Human Rights Network NGO, told the BBC.
Police said the man had been locked up by his parents on suspicion of drug abuse and left without proper food and health care.
Some reports said he had been locked up for seven years.
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Sources said a resident of the area, Rahma Muhammad, alerted a human rights activist who informed the police about Aminu’s plight.
In the video circulating online, Ms Rahma Muhammad is heard saying “I have fulfilled my promise of rescuing him.”
The Kano police spokesman, Abdullahi Haruna, confirming the incident in a statement, said: “The Kano State Police Command wishes to inform members of the general public that on the 13/08/2020 at about 2315hrs, information received revealed that one Aminu Farawa of Farawa Quarters, Kumbotso LGA of Kano State locked up his biological son, one Ahmed Aminu, 30 years old, of the same address inside his car garage within his house for about seven (7) years without proper feeding and health care.
“A Team of Operation Puff-Adder was raised and immediately swung into action. The victim was rescued and rushed to Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital Kano and admitted.
“The father was arrested. Preliminary investigations revealed that the father confessed to have locked-up the victim for three (3) years on allegation of suspected Drug-Abuse.
“However, the Command’s Commissioner of Police, Habu Sani, ordered that the case be transferred to State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID) for Discreet Investigations.”
Haruna said the police are investigating and gathering information on the case, to unravel the reason for Aminu’s confinement.
This is the second time this week a victim has been rescued from horrific conditions in their parents’ house in Nigeria.
On Wednesday, police in Kebbi state rescued a 10-year-old boy from an animal pen where he had been kept for two years by his parents.
