Woman burns house boy with hot iron and razor blade.

A woman known as Mama Sarah, burns her house boy with hot iron and razor blade.The 12-year-old boy, Michael Maduagu, has been in her care since he was five.

The woman who has a penchant for brutalizing the poor boy whom she brought from Anambra State to live with her, used a hot iron on the boy, resulting to severe burns in his body.

The Executive Director of Rural and Urban Development Initiative (RUDI), a pressure group, Musbau Agbodemu, said the matter was first reported to his Ebute-Meta office by another trader who got fed up with the way the woman has been maltreating the boy.

It was learnt that Mama Sarah, who is also a cleaner with Nigerian Naval Dockyard, usually descended on the primary one pupil of the Bonny Camp Primary School, so bad that he passes out and on Sunday, January 10, the day she carried out the latest abuse on the boy, she allegedly beat him up, placed a hot iron on his leg and made incisions on his body with a blade.

It was gathered that Mama Sarah’s fellow traders at Bar Beach Bus Stop on Victoria Island, have severally accused her of inhuman treatment of the boy, urging the government to prosecute her.

Agbodemu said the Ministry of Woman Affairs and Poverty Alleviation officials have intervened in the matter.

“The boy is now in their custody. When he was brought to our office, he wasn’t in a good state. His body is full of scars and bruises. He couldn’t talk much because of fear.

I learnt she brought him to Lagos with the pretext of taking care of him after his father’s death. I just pray this matter will be treated with utmost urgency because she was summoned on Wednesday.”

A fellow trader identified as Buchi, said since Mama Sarah was summoned on Wednesday, she has been acting weird, adding that she has been planning to run away with her daughter.

“I moved to Bar Beach six years ago and I got to know Mama Sarah through Michael. He was always sad. I mostly saw him on the expressway selling fuel.

Things I cannot lift, Michael will lift it. There was a time I bought him food; I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the woman eating the food. The boy once pleaded with me to take him home but I couldn’t because I didn’t want to be accused of kidnapping.

So, I asked him to report his guardian to Bar Beach Police Station but they didn’t take his matter serious. Most times. she accuses him of stealing but I know he is not a thief. There was a day Sarah, her daughter, beat him with a stick. It was when I couldn’t continue to see the boy suffer I took him to RUDI.”

Another woman, Celestial said:

“There is nothing she cannot use to beat him. At times, she used naked wire, hot knife and put grinded pepper on his wounds. She is that mean. I personally went to her place of work to report to her boss. I don’t know the reason they haven’t come to pick her. Is it until she escapes? I think she also needs to be tortured to know how it feels.”

Another resident of the area, Destiny Francis, narrated that Mama Sarah was driven out of the Bar Beach Police Barracks on account of her maltreatment of the boy.

“I was shocked when I heard that she uses hot knife on boy’s legs. Three of her own children left her when her trouble was too much.

It is just her last born that lives with her and that one is something else. She sometimes beat her mother. I want justice to prevail.”