A Nigerian, Ahmed Aminu (30) man has been rescued from the garage of his parents’ house in the northern city of Kano, where he had been locked up for seven years.
He was discovered after a police raid on the family’s residence when
Neighbours had alerted a local NGO about his plight.
Mr Aminu’s father and step-mother have been arrested and police say further investigations are under way.
A video that trended ob social media showed an emaciated Mr 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.
Haruna Ayagi, head of the Human Rights Network NGO said: “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”.
Police said the man had been locked up by his parents for about seven years on suspicion of drug abuse and left without proper food and health care.
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 north-western Kebbi state rescued a 10-year-old boy from an animal pen where he had been kept for two years by his parents.
Northern Nigeria has a drug addiction problem but with few state-funded facilities, some parents are resorting to self-help for their troublesome children.
Some parents have sent their children with drug problems to private religious rehabilitation centres, but some of those have been raided by officials who described them as “torture houses”.
A BBC investigation in 2018 exposed horrifying conditions at a state centre in Kano, where patients with mental health issues were chained to the ground.
