Kafayat Bello, 16, an SS 2 student at Bariga, Lagos, was pounced on by her father, Ibrahim, and whipped till she could not walk. Not done, he plugged their pressing iron and burnt her multiple times. Narrating what led to it, Kafayat said: “On the day of the incident, I was
given the duty of attending to a client who needed manicure and pedicure my mother’s beauty parlor.
When I finished attending to the customer, I left the shop to play with some of my friends. When I got back, my mother asked where I was and told me she would report me to my father. When I got home, she told my father what I did and he started to beat me. He then went off to plug a pressing iron, which he used to burn me all over my body.”
When the brutal action of the father became too scary for Kafayat’s mother, she rushed out to call neighbours for help. They later came in to restrain him. Ibrahim locked Kafayat up and warned her not to go out until the injuries healed so that no one would know what happened. But when her classmates came looking for her from school they told her she had missed some tests.
In order not to miss more tests, she rushed to school two days after the beating. That was when the extensive injuries were discovered by a school official. She later reported the case to the Office of the Public Defender ( OPD ) under the Lagos State Ministry of Justice. Ibrahim was arrested and OPD took over the case. They counted at least 15 visible spots on Kafayat’s body…… Ibrahim later blamed d incidence on d availability of electricity as at d time of d beating…..