The Anambra-based lawyer who allegedly battered her 11-year-old maid, Adachukwu Okafor, and has been on the run for a while, may have turned herself in. Still, she is denying inflicting the gory injuries shown in a viral video on the maid.
Mrs Adachukwu made the denial on Tuesday when she appeared before the Anambra State Commissioner for Women and Social Welfare, Hon Ify Obinabo in her office in Awka.
Recall that the suspect was said to have used a hot knife and iron, to inflict grievous injuries on the maid for allegedly touching her son’s private part while bathing him.
After the crime, she had taken the injured victim to the parents’ house and dumped her, before fleeing to an unknown destination.
Efforts to get her by the state government proved abortive until she was declared wanted by the Federal and State Ministries of Women and Social Welfare, and a N20 million bounty was placed on her head.
She was eventually said to have turned herself in to the Police, earlier this week.
Responding to questions from newsmen, after initially refusing to speak on the pretext that she had made her statement to the police, the suspect denied using a hot iron and knife to damage the maid’s private and other body parts, as was shown in the viral video.
Instead, she claimed she was only flogging the maid for abusing her son when she fell on the blades of cooking gas.
“I was driving and my car broke down at about 3 pm 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.
“The security men in the area even caught her and brought her to me.
“Now, when I got home and was preparing dinner at about 9 pm, 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 I was using and later also, fell with other parts of her body on the blades.
”I never did those things to her,” she denied.
On why she did not take the victim to the hospital when she saw the wounds, the suspect claimed it was night when the incident happened, and she couldn’t see the injuries that night.
She however couldn’t explain why she did not take the victim to the hospital the next day, claiming she woke up in the morning and started preparing her children for school.
“When I took my children to school, I locked her up in the house so that I would finish with her when I came back.
“When I returned, I called her people and took her to them.
“Remember that I was still angry for what she did to my son. No mother will see such a sight and be happy.
“This was a girl I have been nice to. She is not the first person I have 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, Mrs Adachukwu said she never ran away.
“I was the one who turned myself into the police. I did not run away.
“The next day after the incident, my children went to school and I went to work. So how did I run?” she retorted.
The Commissioner, shocked at how unremorseful the suspect was, said the government will ensure that the case is duly prosecuted and justice is done in the matter.
Noting that the suspect’s story negates everything the victim had narrated to the government, Obinabo wondered how the suspect could allow anger to get the better of her, to the point of committing such grievous harm.
According to her, the government is interested in the matter and intends to get to the root of it, as she vowed that her Ministry will continue to go after child abusers, traffickers, and their likes until they find the state unsuitable for their negative trade.
The suspect is expected to be arraigned before the Anambra State Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Magistrate court in Awka today.
