The Ondo State police command yesterday paraded a 10-year-old girl, Suliya Abubakar, threw her step brother, Usman Abubakar, aged 20 months, into a well because their father showed much love for him.
She was said to have lied that the boy was kidnapped.
The incident, according to the police, took place in Owode, behind Central Mosque, Akure.
The commissioner of police in the state, Mr. Bolaji Salami, said the girl threw the baby boy into the well out of annoyance that he got more care from their father.
Salami said the girl later confessed that her brother was inside the well.
In her confession, she said 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 step mother.
“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 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.
Salami said the baby’s corpse was later recovered from the well.
