A 32-year-old woman, Rofiat Oyinkansola Bello, was apprehended by the Oluyole Security Surveillance Team (OSST) at Alajiki area of Olomi, Ibadan, Oyo State, for allegedly searing the back of her ward, Abdulateef (surname withheld), with a hot iron.
Abdulateef’s offence, Nigerian Tribune learnt, was because he accepted a piece of bread offered him by a neighbour, after the arrested woman starved him for a day for finishing at once the beans he was expected to eat twice.
Oyinkansola, a mother of two who is in purdah, was said to have taken the ward, a seven-year-old boy, who happened to be the son of her male first cousin, to live with her two years ago.
Confirming the apprehension of the woman, the OSST commandant, Olusegun Idowu, said that he was on patrol with other vigilantes when he noticed an angry crowd gathered.
He said that it was on getting to the scene that some residents narrated what the woman did to the boy, saying that she had always maltreated him.
In an interview with the victim, Abdulateef, he confirmed being inflicted with burns through an electric iron by his guardian, whom he called Eleha, as she was popularly called.
Speaking with the NigerianTribune, Abdulateef, a Nursery Two pupil, said that when he was offered bread by a neighbour, his guardian asked him to go to their apartment.
“It was my guardian, Eleha, that pressed a hot iron on my back, causing burns. She was ironing and had finished those of her children. She unplugged the iron and pressed it on my back after asking me to remove my shirt,” the boy said.
In her defence, however, Bello said that the victim, whom she confirmed to be her first cousin’s son, started living with her two years ago when he was five after his grandmother died. She said that efforts to make his mother take care of him were unsuccessful as she reportedly said that she could not handle her son who had been spoilt by his grandmother.
She disclosed that his mother had initially abandoned him when he was a baby.
She said, “After his grandmother died, his mother refused to take him into custody, saying that he was spoilt. I took him in, but I noticed he used to pilfer and tell lies. And he knows I don’t like that, so that made me to beat him often.
“Last Saturday, he and my children said they would eat beans. I placed it on a coal pot to cook and went to the shop. Later, I asked him and my son to go and add pepper to it. But he and my son ate all the beans before we came in the night. I decided not to give them dinner; I offered only my daughter some garri to drink.
“I went to my room to sleep but unknown to me, Abdulateef opened the door and left the house. As I woke up the following morning and asked my son to wake others up to go to the mosque for prayers, he told me that he couldn’t find Abdulateef.
“We started looking for him. I wanted to go and report at the police station when I decided to go and check the apartment beside us. I went there and noticed that the louvres were open. He must have entered the building through the window and we found him inside.
“He was brought out and I was told not to beat him. I went back to our apartment and started cooking. Thereafter, I slept. “When I woke up, I asked of Abdulateef and was told he was downstairs. I wanted to go and buy garri to make eba for him since he had not eaten, but learnt that he was being fed with bread by a neighbour.
“I went to the neighbour and told her that what she did was not right, as she would not allow the boy to realise his wrongdoing. I said I deliberately starved him to teach him a lesson, and that the neighbour was supposed to join me in reprimanding him. I also spoke about meeting him in our neighbour’s apartment eating their garri, asking if that was good.
“I went back upstairs where I was ironing. I asked Abdulateef and my son to kneel down as punishment. As he wanted to run away, I used my leg to cross his in order to stop him. Later, I released them and they went to the mosque in the night. I was cooking when they slept.
“On Monday morning, I cooked breakfast and prepared them for school. I didn’t know he had burns on his back. I thought he must have fallen on the iron when I tried to stop him from running away when he was punished.”
A young neighbour, Abdulsalam Kareem, spoke on the ill-treatment of the victim by his guardian.
“She would hit his head on the wall, march on and kick him whenever she was reprimanding him,” he said.
Another neighbour, Amina Adeleke, described the burns inflicted on the boy’s back as “too much.” “The woman is used to beating the boy mercilessly,” she added.
It was learnt that the case was later handed over to the Divisional Police Officer at Sanyo Division, from where it was transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Iyaganku, Ibadan, for further investigation.
Information gathered in an update indicated that the case had been charged to Family Court Two at Iyaganku,Ibadan, presided over by Mrs P.O. Adetuyibi.
After granting the defendant bail, the case was adjourned till September 15 for further hearing.
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The PDP spokesman recalled how the opposition party had on various occasions alerted that the APC government had ceded sovereignty over a large portion of our country to terrorists, “many of whom were imported into our country by the APC.”
He further stated: “From the video, in a brazen manner, terrorists as non-state actors boldly showed their faces, boasting, admitting and confirming their participation in the Kuje Prison break, some of whom were former prison inmates who were either jailed or awaiting trial for their previous terrorism act against our country.
“Nigerians can equally recall the confession by the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that the APC government knows the plans and whereabouts of the terrorists but failed to act.
According to Ologunagba, about 18,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists between 2020 and 2022 “as the criminals continue to be emboldened by the failures and obvious complicity of the APC and to which the PDP had always drawn attention.”
“This is not politics; this is about humanity and leadership, which leadership sadly and unfortunately is missing in our country at this time,” he said.
The PDP added that it is appalled by “the lame response by the apparently helpless, clueless and deflated Buhari Presidency, wherein it told an agonizing nation that President Buhari “has done all and even more than what was expected of him as Commander in Chief by way of morale, material and equipment support to the military…”
“This is a direct admission of incapacity and failure by the Buhari Presidency and the APC. At such a time, in other climes, the President directly leads the charge and takes drastic measures to rescue and protect his citizens.
“In time of adversity, the President transmutes into Consoler-in-Chief to give hope and succour to the citizens. Painfully, Nigeria does not have a President who cares and can stand as Consoler-in-Chief to the citizens.
“It has now become very imperative for Nigerians to take note and realize that the only solution to this unfortunate situation is to hold the APC government accountable. We must come together as a people, irrespective of our political, ethnic and religious affiliations to resist the fascist-leaning tendencies of the APC administration.
Ologunagba called for an urgent meeting of the National Council of State to advise on the way to go over the nation’s worsening insecurity.
“Our nation must not fall. The resilient Nigerian spirit and ‘can-do- attitude’ must be rekindled by all to prevail on the President to immediately and without further delay, accede to the demand by the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians to convene a special session of the National Council of State to find a lasting solution since the President has, in his own admission, come to his wit’s end,” the PDP spokesman declared.
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