Posted by By JULIANA FRANCIS on
A mother has taken child abuse to a horrible level by inflicting wounds on her son's body with acidic juice from cashew and using him to beg for alms.
A mother has taken child abuse to a horrible level by inflicting wounds on her son's body with acidic juice from cashew and using him to beg for alms. Daily Sun gathered that Ngozi Okafor, 39, prepared cashew juice in a manner that made it corrosive. She then poured the liquid on the skin of her 10-year-old son, Obinna, causing the skin to peel off.
When the baked skin fell off, the affected portion became a sore, leaving the boy in searing pain. The woman later took Obinna under the Ikeja bridge in Lagos to solicit for alms from sympathetic citizens.
She did this over and over but the last administration of the cashew acid treatment by Ngozi was one too many. Rather than heal, Obinna's wound festered.
It was gathered that fearing that the boy could lose his right leg, Ngozi took him to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja. While examining the child, the doctors noticed other signs of healed burnt wounds on different parts of the boy's body and suspected foul play. They invited the police from the Area ‘F' command. She has since been charged to court.
Little Obinna told Daily Sun at the hospital: "Na my Mama use cashew for my leg! My leg dey pain me."
Ngozi, a mother of six, told Daily Sun that she only took Obinna from their Adekunle, Ebute-Metta home to Ikeja, because she wanted to raise money to treat his wound or find "someone" who would assist her financially.
She explained that life had been tough since her husband abandoned her and the children. According to her, to make ends meet, she sold vegetable at the Oyingbo market.
Ngozi denied pouring cashew acid on the boy to make money. She said: "He poured hot water on himself when he wanted to prepare Eba for his younger ones. I treated him to the best of my capacity. I later brought him out, because I was looking for a person that would assist me in treating him. I said that once I get a little money, I'll take him to the hospital."
At the General Hospital, Daily Sun gathered that Ngozi was the second mother that had been handed over to the police for inflicting wound on their children to make money.
The condition of the first woman's child was said to have worsened to the extent that the stench from the wound was nauseating.
Meanwhile, Obinna and the other five children have been taken over for proper care and attention by the hospital's welfare department.