Pregnant Woman, Banker Sister Roast Maid With Hot Iron Over N2,000 ($15)

By Vincent Ukpong
Dail Sun, Saturday, August 18, 2007

Happiness
 

If names are given to influence circumstance or situation, definitely, Happiness has turned out to be a misnomer for a housemaid, who goes by that name.

By her name, she does not deserve what befell her last Monday. Since last Monday, Happiness Chukwunyere has not known happiness. She is now writhing in anguish and pains in a hospital following a brutal torture by her two female relations over N2,000 said to have missed in the house.
Happiness, 13, lives in Ibadan, Oyo State with a woman, who is a relation of her father.

According to her, she came to live with the woman September last year and was made to repeat Primary Six because she did not come with her testimonial which would lend credence to her being promoted to a new class.

Her parents live at Obigbo, Rivers State.
The woman she is living with saw the need for Happiness to go to Lagos and spend the long vacation if for nothing at least for a change of environment. The holiday trip brought her to Ojo, Lagos where she stays with a sister to her madam in Ibadan. The holiday had been blissful until last Monday.

Missing N2,000
Chibuzor, a banker and her pregnant sister, Chizoba are the two daughters of the woman Happiness is spending her holidays with in Lagos. They live in Shomolu, Lagos.

According to Happiness, the female banker had sent the sum of N58,000 to their mother. After some days, when the need for the money arose, the woman counted the money and found out that what was available was N56,000. She phoned her daughter, the banker who maintained that the money was N58,000. She directed her mother to question Happiness over the missing money because according to her, only Happiness would know about the missing money. The old woman did accordingly and asked Happiness who denied knowledge of the missing money.

Road to torture
According to Happiness, after vouching her innocence, Chibuzor and Chizoba were still not convinced. “They requested their mother to send me to them at Shomolu for me to tell them truth. When I arrived, after quizzing me, I still maintained my innocence; they brought out scissors and cut part of my hair. They stripped me and tied my two hands behind my back and started flogging me with canes”.

According to her, after the two canes got broken into pieces without her admitting knowledge of the missing money, they sent a boy of about eight years old living with them to boil water which they doused her with. “They also used hot electric iron on my buttock, belly and lap.”

After this torture, I fainted. Instead of reviving me with cold water, they poured hot water on me. Chizoba, the one that is pregnant said “she has seen the person to kill today. They later locked me in one of the rooms and used a live wire to cross the door so that I will be electrocuted if I want to escape. Thank God NEPA took the light and never brought it back until I escaped” she narrated.

My miraculous escape
While I was locked up in the room, the little boy living with Chibuzor and Chizoba was sleeping in the sitting room. Because her hands were swollen and lacerated as a result of the cord tied on them and the canning, she could not knock hard on the door instead she was banging the door with her head. When this did not produce an impact, she painfully rolled wrappers on her bruised hands and exerted the pressure of her life on the door. Luckily, the door opened. She ran out to the street half naked. Not knowing where she was as that was her first time of being to Shomolu, she asked one man how she would get to Okokomaiko. The good Nigerian took her to the police station.

Pitiable sight
The degree of injury inflicted on her is beyond description. After three days in the hospital, the swollen hands are yet to return to normal. Every part of the skin is lacerated including the breast and upper part of the pubic region. The impression of hot electric iron is on her left lap, buttocks and her belly.

The two ladies from hell as at Thursday evening were in detention at the Alade Police Station in Shomolu. From Saturday Sun’s findings at the station, there were serious pressures from relations of the ladies who did this evil on the police to release the duo, according to them, so that the lady banker with a new generation bank whose name comes in three letters, with the word ‘Bank’ preceding the three letters would return to her work.

As Saturday Sun visited the station as part of the routine duty of getting to police stations on daily basis to see what is happening, news of this gory incident filtered in and it was necessary to hang around and get the full details without disclosing press identity.

Relations of the lady banker and her pregnant sister were rather more interested in the job of their lady and making efforts that the incident involving the ladies from Mbano in Imo State doesn’t get press attention. It was rather surprising watching all of them gather to pester the police not to allow the ladies get embarrassed as the ‘devil caused the whole thing’.