Photo: My Mother Threatened To Kill Me– Six-Year-Old Boy Stabbed By Mom Explains

Culled From Punch;

Six-year-old Promise Eboye, should not be alive, at least
going by the four gory looking stab injuries on his back. The boy survived an
attack that would have killed even an adult had the injuries been sustained in
vital parts of the body.

Promise, a bright and sharp boy lives with his mother and
step-father in Kollington area of Ijaiye, Lagos, while his biological father
lives in Benin, Edo State.

At about 8am on Monday, Promise’s mother, Comfort, stabbed
her son four times, inflicting life-threatening injuries on the boy’s body.

The broken bottle the woman used on her son tore into the
boy’s flesh inflicting one three-inch injury and another two-inch injury on the
boy’s back. Two other wounds looked equally horrific but were not as long and
deep as the other two.

Neighbours said if Promise had not run away from his mother,
who held tight to his wrist and stabbed him as he screamed, he would have been
stabbed to death.

What manner of crime could such a young boy have committed,
people who witnessed the scene have asked.

On Wednesday, our correspondent visited the woman’s house on
Olawoyin Street. The story that Promise, his neighbours and the hospital
workers told could only be described as incredible.

Promise, who seems to have a remarkable memory, told
Saturday Punch that his mother has a “N30 cane”, which she uses to flog him,
even when he had no idea what he had done wrong. He said she would sometimes
beat him till he could not walk.

“My mother is wicked,” Promise said simply, quietly. As
shocking as that sounded, coming from a six-year-old, it explained the kind of
treatment the boy had been experiencing in the hands of his mother.

Promise said he had been living with his father in Edo State
since he was one year old. But when he was five, his mother came to take him
from his father’s house.

The boy said, “I was sweeping the day she came. I did not
know her as my mother. My father then told me that she was my mother and she
had come to take me to Lagos.

“When we came to Lagos, I started to live with her and my
step-father. But she beat me all the time.”

Asked what happened on Monday to make his mother stab him,
Promise said he tripped and fell.

He said, “When I fell, my mother asked me what pushed me and
why I fell. She was angry and went to take her N30 cane. When she was beating
me too much and I was screaming, one of our neighbours came to hold her hand to
take the cane away from her. The woman said I should run away because my mother
would kill me the way she was beating me.

“My mother said ‘I will kill you, I will kill you’. When she
could not find anything else to beat me with, she took a broken bottle on the
ground and started to stab me on the back.”

Promise was rescued by alarmed residents, who took him to a
private hospital nearby.

But by the time the boy was taken to the hospital, Comfort
had planted another story in the boy’s head.

Pastor Charles Agboola, a pharmacist who founded the
hospital, said the two people who brought Promise in said the boy fell down and
landed on a broken bottle. When Agboola’s wife, a nurse, asked the boy what
actually happened, Promise told her that he was watching two people fight when
he sustained the injury.

The nurse told our correspondent, “He told me that they
pushed him and he landed on the broken bottles but when I informed my husband,
he said immediately that the story could not be true. I also noticed that the
wounds were not consistent with that story.

“It was shocking that the boy’s mother was not remorseful in
any way. It was when she dashed out of the door under the pretence that she was
going to look for money for the boy’s treatment, that a crowd from their
street, who were coming to the hospital ,grabbed her and told the true story of
what happened.

“When we asked Promise why he lied, he said his mother had
told him what to say when asked how he sustained the injury.”

Mr. Agboola told Saturday Punch that by the time the boy was
about to leave the clinic, he was crying.

“He said he did not want to go back home. We fed him, gave
him any kind of food he wanted because I could not leave the boy to suffer even
though nobody paid us any money for his treatment. We even prayed for him.
Anytime we brought up the issue of who would take over his care when he was
released from our hospital, he became very sad,” the pharmacist said.

Neighbours told our correspondent that Comfort sometimes
punished the boy by smashing his head against a wall whenever he did something
wrong.

Comfort was later handed over to the police at
Ijaiye-Ojokoro Division.

Comfort, who is nursing a toddler, said Promise stepped on
her baby, which was why she became angry.

When Promise’s biological father was later contacted, he
initially said he wanted nothing to do with the issue.

“I have other children – I have produced boys and girls.
Whatever she likes, she should do with her son. When she likes, she would take
the boy to a motor park and send him to me through a driver,” the man said.

Later when he was told that his ex-wife was in police
custody, he said he would come to Lagos to pick the boy.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Kenneth Nwosu, said
Comfort would be arraigned as soon as possible.

He explained that Promise had been treated and discharged
from hospital. As of the time of filing this report, Promise was being housed
at the Lagos State social welfare home.

Later on Thursday, Comfort was arraigned at an Ojokoro
Magistrate Court, Lagos on charges of assault occasioning harm and attempted
murder.

Promise’s father also came to Lagos on Thursday to take the
boy. The father declined to speak on the issue when our correspondent tried to
ask him some questions. “I only came to Lagos to pick the boy,” he said.