The South-East Zone of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) has condemned the use of force by a traditional ruler in Enugu State to make a man to drink water used in washing a corpse.

In a statement in Enugu on Wednesday, the organisation called on the state government to investigate the issue, which it said, happened in Imufu, Enugu Ezike, in Igbo-Eze North local government.

The statement, issued by Mr Olu Omotayo, the Zonal Director of CLO, said one Matthew Ossai was forced to drink the water to prove his innocence over the death of a clansman.

Omotayo claimed that the traditional ruler of the community, Eze Remigius Attah, accused Ossai of using supernatural powers to cause the death of his younger brother, Fidelis Attah, and wanted him to prove his innocence.

Reacting to the allegation, the traditional ruler told NAN on Wednesday that he was not aware of any such treatment in his community.

Attah said he was hearing of the case for the first time from the NAN correspondent.

Omotayo had said that the deceased, who died in an unnamed hospital, was diagnosed with liver complications, leading to a protracted illness.

According to him, it was when sympathizers, including Ossai, went to the family of the deceased that the traditional ruler mobilized the youths of the area to seize him and forced him to drink the water to prove his innocence.

Omotayo said the significance of the water was that if Ossai was guilty as charged, he would die within seven native weeks (28 days) and that he would be proclaimed innocent if he survived the period.

Describing the action as barbaric, the zonal director called on the state and the local government council to investigate the matter as a mark of its social responsibility to the citizenry.

“It is now very well over seven native weeks that Ossai was subjected to this inhuman and degrading treatment and he is still living but the stigma still follows him everywhere he goes in the community.

“It is high time the government started looking into the welfare of people in our rural communities as the atrocities committed by a few opportuned people in these communities are gradually increasing thereby encroaching on peoples rights and subjecting them to great humiliation and torture’’, Omotayo said. (NAN)