A two-year-old boy, Ibrahim, has died gooo/metro-plus/toddler-dies-after-eating-poisoned-rice/”>after eating a plate of rice suspected to have been poisoned in Ijora Badia area of Lagos.
The twist in the story is that the food was prepared by his mother, Fatimoh Azeez.
Fatimoh, however, said the food was eaten by other members of her
family who were not hurt, adding that she suspected that one of her
sisters-in-law, Fatimoh Rasaki, who had visited her on the day of the
incident, had a hand in the death of the child.
Ibrahim was a love child between Fatimoh and her boyfriend, Isa, whom
she visited regularly in his parents’ apartment on Olajide Street in
the Ijora community.
The lovebirds were reportedly cohabiting in the house when Fatimoh’s
parents took her and the baby away to their house on Akosile Street but
not without supervised visits by both Isa to both parties.
However, on one of such visits, Isa had a disagreement with
his mother-in-law, which escalated into a fight with his girlfriend and
he was reportedly stopped him from visiting the child.
His sisters, Fatimoh Rasaki and Latifah Musbau, both married with
children, were said to be visiting Fatimoh’s family on the fateful
Sunday to mediate in the couple’s dispute, when the child died.
Fatimoh, in her statement to the police, said she was washing some
clothes at the back of the house when she saw Rasaki spoon-feeding her
child, which made her upset because she feared he could be poisoned.
She said, “After I gave birth to my child, my husband’s people
started maltreating me and sent me out of the house. I decided to stay
with my parents.
“On August 16, around 11am, I was washing clothes when I saw my two sisters-in-law coming into the house to meet my parents.
“I saw as Fatimoh (Rasaki) carried my child and began to feed him
with rice. I quickly rushed there and grabbed him from her and strapped
him to my back.
“After some time, I put him on the bed. Suddenly, he started shaking
uncontrollably. I rushed him to a hospital, where the doctor said he had
died.
“I was the one who prepared the rice and it was eaten by all members of my family.”
The two sisters-in-law, upon hearing the news, rushed to the house.
They were said to have been arrested by the policemen from the Ijora
Badia division, before the case was transferred to the State Department
of Criminal Investigation, Yaba.
They however denied their involvement in the death of the child.