Lagos State Police command said they had rescued a week-old baby sold for N920,000 from a 25-year-old mother of four, Nkechi Obi. Obi, according to the police, was arrested at Oshodi about 11am on November 3, while coming from Anambra State.
The suspect, who was paraded at the state Police Command Headquarters at Ikeja yesterday, claimed she was sent by her ‘master’ to take the baby to a woman in Lagos. She said: “I was in Imo State before I came down to Onitsha to learn a trade.
A week after I started the work, my master told me I would be going to Lagos but I have not being there before. Immediately she told me, I rushed home to change my clothes. But to my surprise, I was given a baby to take to a woman and her phone number was also given to me. “My master saw me off to Asaba with the baby and went back to Onitsha.
The woman and I started communicating right from Asaba until I got to Lagos. Even after I was arrested, she called me but one of the policemen snatched the phone from me and told her I was in police custody.
Since then, she had switched off her phone.” On how she was arrested, Obi said the driver and co-travellers became curious when she was unable to breastfeed the baby.
She said: “When we got to Ore in Ondo State, the baby started crying uncontrollably which drew the attention of the other passengers who told me to breastfeed the baby. Then I brought out the baby milk given to me and I gave it to the baby.
When we got to Oshodi, the driver and co-passengers called some of the policemen who were on patrol in the area. I was arrested immediately and I confessed to them that the baby was not mine.” The suspect also claimed her husband took her four children from her and sent her away.
“I lost my parents at a tender age and there was nobody to cater for me. That was why I got married at the age of 16. I have four children for my husband. But my husband took my children from me and sent me packing.
That was why I went to Onitsha to learn a trade and start a new life,” Obi added. The police believed the woman in Lagos was desperately in need of a male child that was why she contracted the suspect’s master to get her a male child.
The state Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni, who paraded the suspect, said the baby had been handed over to the Family Support Unit of the command to take care of the baby. Owoseni gave assurance that all those involved in the case would be arrested.
He promised that his command would work with the Anambra State Police Command to arrest the woman who gave the baby to the suspect.
The commissioner, however, urged parents to teach their young girls about way of life. According to him, there is no dignity in transacting human beings because it is a primitive method.
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