Weekend Titbits by Boma Nwuke
graphic design by August Orafiri Nwuke
Every society has its quiet tragedies — stories that surface briefly, stir emotions, and then sink into the crowded sea of unresolved pain. One such tragedy is the agony and mystery surrounding the death of a little boy fondly called Papa, allegedly flogged to death by a neighbour in a community already stretched to its breaking point by hardship, hunger and hopelessness.
Across Nigeria today, daily living has become a battle of survival. Policies that were meant to stabilise the economy have instead tightened the noose around ordinary citizens, leaving many households with a grim choice: adapt under crushing pressure or perish silently. In many homes, three square meals have become a luxury; even one decent meal a day is now a struggle. The economic crunch has spared no one — not the poor, not even those once considered comfortable. Vulnerability has become democratic.
This suffocating hardship has not only emptied pockets; it has fractured families. Marriages have collapsed under the weight of unemployment, frustration and despair. Husbands and wives, once partners, now turn against each other, with the weakest — the children bearing the heaviest burden. In many cases, men walk away, leaving women to shoulder responsibilities they are neither emotionally nor financially equipped to manage.
It was within this harsh reality that the tragic story of Papa unfolded.
Papa was living with his biological mother and a stepfather who, like many others, had no stable means of livelihood. The mother reportedly had no job, no business, not even a petty trade. Survival was a daily gamble. Before his death, the boy had reportedly fallen ill, but his mother allegedly could not take him to a hospital because there was no money. Healthcare, like food, had become optional in a country where poverty now dictates who lives and who merely exists.
On the fateful day, Papa and some other children were playing near a neighbour’s window. Children, by nature, are noisy — laughter, shouting and carefree play are their language. But to a woman already irritated, stressed or overwhelmed, that noise became an offence.
According to accounts, the neighbour, a woman, from Rivers allegedly emerged from her house, picked up a cane and began flogging the children. Their tiny legs could barely carry them away. They scattered in fear, but not before receiving strokes meant for adults. Satisfied that she had “taught them a lesson,” the woman reportedly returned indoors, hoping to enjoy a quiet nap.
What followed shocked the entire community.
One of the children she had flogged — Papa was dead.
News of the boy’s death spread like wildfire. Grief quickly morphed into rage. Members of the boy’s ethnic group, Ijaw( Bayelsa ) men, women and children, poured into the area, their anger spilling over in chants that sounded like a call to war.
“Hay! Hay! Where is the murderer?
Where is the witch?
Come out now or you will see the worst in us!”
The woman, sensing danger, reportedly hid herself and her children, locking her doors against the advancing crowd. Fists banged on the door. Voices rose. The atmosphere was thick with fury and the possibility of mob justice loomed dangerously close.
But fate or perhaps reason intervened.
Members of the woman’s ethnic group living in the area rushed to the scene upon hearing of the unfolding crisis. They pleaded for calm, urging the grieving family not to take the law into their hands.
“You have told your side,” they reportedly said. “But we must hear from the other side.”
That intervention cooled tempers, at least momentarily. Strengthened by the restored calm, the woman eventually emerged from hiding, after instructing her children to remain indoors. She narrated her own version of events.
According to her, the children regularly gathered around her house, making noise that disturbed her peace. She claimed she had warned them several times to stay away whenever she was at home, but they allegedly ignored her warnings. That, she said, was why she resorted to flogging them.
“I am not the one who killed your son,” she insisted. “If I were a killer or a witch, as you claim, the other children beaten along with him would have died too.”
The matter soon attracted the attention of the police. At the request of someone from the boy’s family, officers were invited. The woman was arrested and reportedly detained for four days. The boy’s mother was also invited for questioning.
At the police station, questions took a different turn.
She was asked if she was married. She answered yes.
Was her husband the father of the deceased boy?
She answered no.
Who then was the boy’s father?
She explained that her former husband had left her, married another woman and relocated to another city. The police requested his phone number. She provided it. The first attempt to reach him failed. On the second try, the call went through.
“Hello,” the man answered.
“Can we know who is on the line?”
“This is the police,” came the reply. “Are you aware of your child’s demise?”
There was a long, deafening silence.
Then the man spoke.
“That woman, my former wife, has a problem,” he reportedly said. “I had seven children with her, and one by one they died. So this is not new to me. When I was with her, the deaths became so frequent that we sought answers everywhere — prayer houses and even traditionalists. We were told there was a curse in her family, and until it is cleansed, any child she has will die the same way.”
That statement reportedly changed the course of events. Shortly after, the police released the alleged flogger. The woman returned home. Papa’s family buried their dead. And the community returned to its uneasy silence.
But the questions refused to die.
Was Papa killed by flogging, by illness, by neglect, or by a deadly mix of all three?
Was the neighbour cruel, careless, or merely a product of a society that has lost its patience and humanity?
Was the mother a victim of abandonment, poverty and stigma, or a negligent parent overwhelmed by circumstances?
And what of a system where superstition can so easily overshadow forensic truth?
Beyond the mystery lies a broader tragedy — the failure of society.
Papa was living in a home without income, without healthcare access, and without protection. His stepfather allegedly depended on kpo fire — illegal bunkering as a source of livelihood until the present administration clamped down on it. With that door shut, survival became even harder. When informal economies are destroyed without viable alternatives, families collapse quietly, and children pay the ultimate price.
This story is not just about a flogging. It is about poverty weaponised, about anger transferred, about children growing up in environments where discipline is confused with violence. It is about a justice system quick to accept superstition where science should speak. It is about how hunger dulls empathy and how desperation erodes restraint.
Most painfully, it is about how society has normalised suffering.
In saner climes, a child’s illness prompts urgent medical care. In our reality, sickness waits for money, and money often never comes. In healthier societies, neighbours protect children; here, they sometimes become their tormentors. In functioning systems, investigations rely on evidence; here, ancestral curses can close a case.
Papa’s death forces us to confront uncomfortable truths: that children are no longer safe, that hardship has made monsters of ordinary people, and that silence is our most dangerous accomplice.
There is a proverb that says: “When the roof leaks, it is the children who get drenched first.” Papa was drenched — not just by the cane, but by neglect, hunger, superstition and systemic failure.
If this society continues to look away, Papa will not be the last.
Another proverb warns: “A community that does not raise its children will eventually mourn them.” We are already mourning — quietly, repeatedly, and shamefully.
Papa is gone.
But his story should not be buried with him.
Weekend Titbits is published by The Port Harcourt Telegraph Newspaper authored by the Managing Editor.
This is so sad. I hope our country gets better:(