Mary Daniel: Family of Lagos amputee hawker says she’s lying

The family of the infamous Lagos amputee hawker, Mary Daniel has said the 27-year-old lady lied to evoke sympathy and claim that she has no family to cater for her was embarrassing to them.

In an interview with her aunt, Blessing Adedamola, in Abuja, she told TheCable that Mary’s claim that she has no family to cater for her was a lie, she revealed that her name is Ojonuwa Onu, not Mary Daniel, as she had claimed.

Adedamola also explained that she was staying with Juni Abu, her grandmother, in the village when she suddenly fled home with her whereabouts unknown thereafter.

She said prior to the incident, Abu, who is her own mother, had called severally to complain about Mary’s attitude, describing her as “stubborn”.

“She (Mary) just told mama that she was going to the next village to buy something which is like N50 taxi from here and is also trekkable. She had one wrapper and a shirt on then and that was it,” she said.

“Mama didn’t see her anymore and she started calling us thereafter. But before then, mama had been calling to report that she did this and that. So, I told her that Mary must have been craving for such freedom to run away. You can’t control her because she is stubborn to be sincere. So, she woke up one day and mama didn’t see her again.”

Adedamola also dismissed Mary’s claim that she was married off at a young age, noting that the family only got to know she was pregnant when she put to bed.

“There is this trending news that mama was the one who gave her to a husband. But she (mama) is not aware of anything that happened. When we learned she was in Onitsha and then Asaba, we were really angry because of the kind of life she was living and all she was doing,” she added.

“I particularly used to be angry and kept telling her the kind of life she’s living won’t yield anything without education. In April 2019, she called mama congratulating her that she had put to bed. Mama, I and my sister were all shocked. I was like, how did you get pregnant? How did you do it? When did you marry?