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Onlookers
were held with shock and disbelief on Friday, September 7 at Iyaganku
Police Division when an eight-year-old girl, Ewaoluwa (surname
withheld), was brought to the station for changing the looks of her
mother’s housemaid when she allegedly bathed the Togolese girl with hot
water for not responding to her call that she needed to eat Indomie in
time.
In a case that was said to have been reported on
that Friday by a member of Child’s Protection Network, (a
non-governmental organisation), Pastor Marcus William, the
eight-year-old girl had allegedly poured hot water on the head, neck
and back side of the 14-year-old housemaid, whose name was given as Mary
Komule, on September 5 for not answering her in time when she asked
Mary to make her Indomie. Acting on this information, policemen and
women attached to the Juvenile Welfare section of Iyaganku went to the
girl’s parents’ house at Olaniran Fagbemi Street, Joyce B area of Ibadan
immediately after receiving the information, but was said to have been
resisted by the girl’s mother who reportedly told his gateman to tell
the police that she was not around.
It was further gathered that the
police officers spent close to four hours outside the gate and had
prepared to obtain a search warrant from a court when the woman’s lawyer
came around and persuaded her to follow the law enforcement agents. In
her statement to the police at Iyaganku, Ewaoluwa claimed that she
wanted to eat Indomie and informed the housemaid, but she was busy
cleaning the floor on which palm oil poured. The housemaid, Mary, had
reportedly put some water on the fire to further clean the floor when
she noticed the floor was still slippery. Angered by the fact that her
request was not promptly attended to, the little girl had reportedly
ordered Mary to kneel down and put her hands behind her back, after
which she tied them with a scarf. She was said to have claimed that she
first poured cold water on the housemaid but when she saw that the
teenager did not feel any pain, she took the water the maid was boiling
on the fire and poured it on the helpless girl, right from the head to
the back of her neck. Writhing in pain, Mary had reportedly robbed the
scalded skin with her hands, resulting in the skin peeling off. Though
the girl’s mother was said to be away in Lagos when the incident
occurred, Ewaoluwa, when asked whether she was punished for her
misdeeds, told the police that her mother scolded her by asking her to
‘face the wall’. The mother of the girl who was crying profusely as the
crowd booed her and her daughter told the police that she took Mary to a
nearby chemist for treatment when she returned from her journey and was
informed of the occurrence. She also said that the girl had been with
her for about six moths, adding that she didn’t want to come out to the
police initially because she was scared. However, the housemaid
countered her, saying that she was not taken anywhere for treatment and
had been in pain until the time of her rescue. Her burns were only
dabbed with Gentian Violet when Crime Features saw the girl at the
police station. When asked why she didn’t resist the abuse on her, Mary
said her mistress had strictly warned her not to touch the girl on any
account. Sources living around the home of the girl’s parents told Crime
Features that the housemaid had once attempted to run away but was
held back by people. Since then, they said, she had been under close
monitoring by her mistress. The gateman of the house also told the
police that he had only worked with the family for nine days before the
incident but had never seen the girl outside until that day. Confirming
the story, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Clement Adoda said that
the housemaid had been handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs in
Oyo State while the NAPTIP had also been contacted so that proper
repatriation of the girl back to her country could be effected. Mr Adoda
added that the little suspect and her mother had been granted bail
while the case would be charged to court after the resumption of the
legal year.
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