Khadija Adamu, an 18-year-old pregnant housewife, has beaten her five-year-old stepdaughter to death for defecating on her body.
Following the incident, Adamu was nabbed by operatives of Bauchi Police Command.
Owning up to the crime, Adamu pleaded for forgiveness, saying she did not set out to kill the girl but to correct her for her wrongdoing.
Adamu, who spoke to journalists during her parade at the police headquarters in Bauchi, maintained that she didn’t know her stepdaughter would die.
Her words: “How can I kill a child who was like my child? Even though she was my co-wife’s baby, she was also my daughter because she was my husband’s child. What happened was just a mistake and not a deliberate intention to kill.
“I am also a mother and I am currently four months pregnant with my second child, how can I possibly kill another child? What happened was that this girl defecated on her body and I felt that at her age, she shouldn’t have done that, so I used a USB cord to beat her. It was not as if I had any intention of killing her.
“I didn’t know she would die. I only wanted to correct her. She didn’t die that day I beat her, it was the next day that she died and I felt very sad and unhappy that she died.
“I asked for leniency because everyone has forgiven me. I asked the police to pardon me if not for anything but for the baby I am carrying in my womb since what I did was not a deliberate thing.”
Bauchi Commissioner of Police, Auwal Muhammad, while parading the suspect before journalists, said the housewife, a resident of the Kandahar area, a suburb of the Bauchi metropolis, was arrested following serious injuries she inflicted on the minor.
According to the police commissioner, on Thursday, September 28, 2023, the policemen moved the victim to the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi where she was confirmed dead by the medical doctor.