A 12-year-old girl who was reportedly tortured last month by her aunt for allegedly stealing N200, is dead, The Nation learnt yesterday.
It was gathered that the girl, identified simply as Ifunaya, died two weeks after the torture resulted in internal bleeding from her head injury, which reportedly caused her death.
A team of policemen from Ago Division in Isolo, Lagos, and officials of Child Protection Network (CPN), who visited the suspect’s home at the weekend, were told she had not been seen in the last three weeks.
According to CPN’s Coordinator, Ebenezer Omejalile, the suspect, Ada Samuel, a resident of 107, Femi-Killa Street, Ago Palace Way in Okota, had abandoned her home.
“We first visited the home about three weeks ago. The woman was not around. The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) collected her number and she was called that her attention was needed at the police station. Going by the information from the neighbour, her fleeing coincided with the time we first went there.
“Her apartment was under lock. We won’t give up until there is justice for the late Ifunaya. The teenager suffered constant beating from her aunt. It is suspected that she suffered internal bleeding as a result of the beating and knock on her head.”
Ifunaya’s alleged torture was exposed by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) in Oshodi when she reported to school with swollen eyes.
In an interview with SUBEB officials, Ifunaya said her aunt kept N200, which she saw and kept in the sitting room.
The girl said she later used N100 from the money to buy drinking water for the house, adding that she misplaced the N100 balance.
“I started looking for the money. I asked my uncle (her aunt’s husband, Samuel) if he saw the money. He started calling my name to leave him alone and started complaining.
“So, my aunt came the next day, my uncle told my aunt that I said he took the N200 and my aunt started beating me with a cane, turning stick, a knife and a pot cover.
“She later told my sister to go and buy ground Cameroon pepper and she poured it in my eyes. Then, she locked me outside. It was raining and I was shouting because my eyes were paining me.
“I could not go to school the next day because I was sick. I told my aunt that I was sick, but she asked about kind of sickness, that I was praying to be sick. She took all the drugs she bought for me and refused to take me to the hospital. She beat me up again. When I complained that my eye was paining me, she slapped me on that swollen eye,” says the late Ifunaya in the video interview.