The father, 43-year-old Rabiu Yusuf, told journalists, on Monday, at the Bauchi State Police Command headquarters, in Bauchi, while being paraded alongside other suspects by the police, that he tortured the boy to death due to his stubbornness.
Yusuf, who said he never knew his action would lead to the boy’s death, stated that he got infuriated with the deceased, following his running away from his house to stay with his mother, who he had divorced.
According to him, he had severally instructed the boy to return home but he refused, saying he had to go and take him home and chained him inside a room so that he would not run away.
“Trouble started when I divorced his mother and married another wife. My son, Aliyu, followed his mother to her new home and I was not in support of the arrangement.
“I called Aliyu several times to come back home because I want him to be in my custody as his father, but he refused, so I went to the mother’s home in annoyance and brought him back home.When I brought him back to my house, I chained him and locked him up inside the room, so that he did not escape and go back to his mother, but unfortunately he died,
Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state, Haruna Mohammed, informed that Yusuf conspired with one Ismail Idris to kill the deceased.
According to the police spokesman, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Yusuf chained and detained the boy for a period of 10 days, but he later fell sick as a result of the ill-treatment meted to him by his father. He added that the boy was taken to Rimi Clinic in Bauchi, where he died while receiving treatment.