An 18-year-old girl and mother of one, Kate Ajie, was recently arraigned before Chief Magistrate Nimi Graham-Douglas presiding over Bonny/Finima Chief Magistrate’s court, Rivers State on a two-count charge of assault occasioning harm and child abuse in relation with her five-year-old daughter, Divine.
Crime Reports learnt that the young girl, Divine, was brought to the Divisional Police Officer, Mohammed Suleiman Baba, a Superintendent of Police, by a concerned neighbour on February 21 at about 8.30a.m. The five-year-old was said to have been seriously battered and brutalised the previous day by her mother, at about 11p.m.
Strewn all over her body were angry weals of whip, said to have been inflicted on the girl over a minute issue that should have attracted concern by the mother rather than violent reaction. The concerned neighbour had alleged constant maltreatment of the girl by her mother before the February incident.
Kate is said to have been impregnated by an unwanted lover which made her develop hatred for the man, and which was being transferred on the child.
When interviewed by Crime Reports, Kate said she did not intend to go that far with her daughter but she was very angry at the way her neighbour shouted on her because of an alleged misdeed by her daughter. Narrating her life story and how she came about the child, Kate said: “I stopped schooling when. I was impregnated against my will in 2008 by one boy called Godstime in my village at Ogoni. He was doing nothing when he impregnated me.
“At that time, I left my mother in Bonny and went to my village selling orange and banana during holidays. Godstime came to buy an orange from me but he didn’t take it, saying he would come back for it as he wanted to see someone.
“When I didn’t see him, I traced him with the orange and took it to the compound that was pointed to me as his place of abode. As I gave him the orange, he put it in his pocket and brought out a white handkerchief and shook it at me. Dust-like particles came from it and that was the last I could remember, as he camped me in his room for two months.
“My people were searching for me but didn’t know where I was. It was my uncle’s wife who discovered me and carried me out of Godstime’s room back home. It was when I came to my senses that I knew what happened.
“That was how I got pregnant without me knowing, though he already knew. I left Ogoni for Bonny to stay with my mother. I told my mother that something was turning in my stomach. She laughed and took me for a test which indicated that I was pregnant. I was surprised because I was still menstruating. I went back to my village where a girl narrated all that happened to me when I was hypnotised.
So what could the young girl have done to warrant such treatment? Kate, who said she was working as a housemaid, replied: “I came back from work on the fateful day and was told that my girl took two children to a main road to play. The mother of the children was shouting so much over the issue that I became confused and frustrated.
“I wanted to flog my daughter on her buttocks but the way she was hollering and jumping about got me angrier. That was why I flogged her all over her body.”
Kate revealed to Crime Reports that her mother died of breast cancer a couple of years back while her father was married to another woman. She stated further that she was the only child her mother had for her father. She pleaded for forgiveness, promising to turn a new leaf and take care of the girl.
At subsequent hearings the chief magistrate instructed that Kate be rehabilitated and the young child put in a school.
via@Tribune