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.
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