By Praise Chinecherem
Onitsha-based female lawyer, Adachukwu Okafor who allegedly battered her 11-year old maid in Onitsha has denied responsibility for the grevious injuries displayed on the househelp in the viral video.
The suspect was accused of using hot knife and iron to inflict grievous injuries on the maid for allegedly touching her son’s private part while bathing him.
She was also said to had dragged the victim to her parents’ house, dumped her before fleeing to an unknown destination.
AnambraDaily reported that she was thereafter declared wanted by both federal and state Ministry of Women Affairs with a N20million bounty for anyone with useful information about her whereabouts.
She however surrendered herself to the Police days after.
But speaking with reporters when she appeared before the Anambra State Commissioner for Women and Social Welfare, Hon. Ify Obinabo in her office in Awka, the suspect denied using hot iron and knife on the maid’s private and other body parts, as was shown in the viral video.
She claimed she was only flogging the maid for abusing her son, when she suddenly fell on the blades of her cooking gas burner.
Hear her: “I was driving and my car broke down at about 3pm that day and I went to buy something.
“When I returned, I met my maid naked on top of my 6-year-old son in my car and when I wanted to beat her, she ran away.
“It was the security men at the area that even caught her and brought her to me.
“When I got home and was preparing dinner at about 9pm, I started flogging her for what she did and in a bid to escape, she fell with her buttocks on the blades of the cooking gas.
“She also fell with other parts of her body on the blades. I never inflicted any injury on her as alleged.”
On why she did not take the victim to the hospital when she saw the wounds, the suspect claimed it was already late in the night, adding that she did not see the extent of the injuries that night.
“I couldn’t take her to the hospital the following morning because I had to prepare my children for school. I locked her up in the house so I will take care of her when I returned. I later called her people and took her to them.
“I couldn’t have inflicted those injury on her because she is not the first person I had lived with. There were many others and this kind of thing never happened,” she claimed.
When asked why she fled her house after committing the crime, the suspect denied running away.
“I never ran away. I was the one who turned myself in to the police. Infact, the next day after the incident, my children went to school and I went to work. So how did I run?” she retorted.
Responding, Commissioner Obinabo described the suspect’s story as sharp departure from the victim’s version, reiterating government preparedness to ensure the case was duly prosecuted and justice served.
She wondered how the supect could allow anger take over her, to the point of committing such grievous harm.
“Government must get to the root of this matter to ensure justice prevailed. Meanwhile, my Ministry will continue to go after child abusers, traffickers and their likes until they are reduced if not totally eradicated,” she stated.
The suspect is expected to be arraigned before the Anambra State Children, Sexual and Gender Based Violence Magistrate court in Awka.
