Commotion as Woman Beats 10-year-old Housemaid to Death in Lagos

7 years ago

Commotion as Woman Beats 10-year-old Housemaid to Death in Lagos

A heartless woman has been arrested by the police in Lagos for allegedly beating her 10-year-old housemaid, Joy Mbafan, to death. The middle-aged woman, Linda Alapa lived with the little girl on Bolanle Oduniyi Street, Okegbegun, in the Ikorodu area of the state.

According to Punch, Alapa was flogging the girl for a misdemeanor around 3am last Monday when she passed out and died afterwards.

She was exposed while trying to deposit the little girl's body at the Ikorodu General Hospital morgue when a doctor on duty noticed marks of violence on her body and alerted the police at the Sagamu Road Division.

On interrogation, Alapa confessed to the crime.
“She wanted to absolve herself of the death of the victim, but for the doctor on duty who raised the alarm after a close examination and she was arrested. There are marks of violence on the body of the deceased and she did not deny beating her.” a police source said.

Some residents said the woman had been warned earlier concerning the manner she treated the little girl. A neighbour of the suspect said Alapa did not only beat the girl but also starved her of food.

The woman, who gave her name only as Ellen, said although she did not know what led to the beating on that day, “she usually beat the girl for messing up their apartment.”

“Around 3am on the day the girl died, I heard her crying as the woman (Alapa) flogged her. I woke up my husband to intervene. He said he was tired of the woman’s insults. After a while, she stopped crying.

“It was when I came back from work that afternoon that I saw a crowd on our premises in tears. They said Joy (Mbafan) was dead. The woman’s husband was not at home that day. It was the landlord that told him about the incident on the telephone.”

Another resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the girl’s father was late while her mother was ill, adding that Alapa had brought her to Lagos from a village in the eastern part of Nigeria.

“But she used to beat up and starve the girl of food. On several occasions, the girl would come to me to eat, saying her aunty did not give her food.”

Lamenting Mbafan’s death, a trader in the area, who identified herself only as Deborah, said that Alapa should be made to face the law over the little girl's death.

She said, “She made that little girl to lose self-confidence. Her body bore marks of lashes. Now that the girl is dead, she should also face the music.”

The story was confirmed by the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos.