FILE PHOTO: A Well

A 10-year-old girl, Suliya Abubakar, said she threw her stepbrother, Usman Abubakar, aged 20 months, inside a well because her stepmother maltreats her.

Abubakar said this while she was being paraded alongside 34 suspects of other crimes, by the Ondo State Commissioner of Police, Mr Salami Bolaji, on Friday, in Akure.

The other suspects were paraded for offences ranging from armed robbery, arson, fraud, killing, theft, to unlawful possession of firearms among others.

Abubakar said that she did not know that Usman will die and that she carried out the action out of frustration and because she was being maltreated by her stepmother.

“My mother separated from my father and she born nine children for my father and two died. So Usman’s mother is living with us now and she cooks for us.

“They love Usman more than me, whenever he passes faeces or urinate on my food, his mother will say I should eat it like that, that nothing will happen to me.

“Usman’s mother will only remove where the faeces is and instruct me to eat it and any day I did not eat the food she will beat me.

“So, on the day the incident happened, it was night and Usman has faeces on his body and I was told to fetch water from the well to wash his body.

“As I was going to fetch water, Usman followed me and I throw him inside well and informed my father that someone with ‘Hijab’ came to kidnap Usman.

“My father said if we get to the police station I should say it is my mother and her friend that kidnapped Usman. I now said I cannot lie against my mother, but my father said I should say it that nothing will happen to me.

“I am the one that threw Usman inside well and I don’t know that he will die,” she said.

Earlier, commissioner of Police Bolaji explained that the 10-year-old committed the offence on Dec. 15, 2020, at Owode, behind Central Mosque, Akure North Local Government Area of the state.

Bolaji said that detectives had responded upon receiving the information and arrested the suspect, while the corpse of the toddler was later recovered from the well.

“She has confessed to having committed the crime. There is nothing we can do than to charge her to court because this is a homicide case.

“And the other paraded suspects will soon be arraigned in court as well,” Bolaji said.