A 38-year-old woman, Nkiru Ekezie, has told detectives attached to the Lagos State Police Command how she assisted her friend, who had been barren for 10 years, to buy a baby. Ekezie said she bought the baby to save her friend’s marriage.
The suspect explained that her friend called her on the phone two months ago; crying hysterically that her marriage was on the brink of collapse because she had not been able to have a child for her husband.
She said: “It was in the process of searching for where to buy a baby that I informed Mrs. Udoji Chukwunoye, a church member, about our predicament.
Udoji later introduced me to the birth attendant, Regina Ibeto, who promised to get us a baby. After I met with Ibeto, she asked me to exercise patience.
She promised that I would soon get what I was looking for. I was told that a male child was N250,000, while a girl child was N200,000.” Two weeks after Ekezie met with Ibeto, she received a phone call from Udoji.
The woman asked her to transfer money into her account that a woman had been delivered of a baby. Ekezie said: “After the baby’s delivery, I called my friend on the phone to inform her.
She was excited and asked me to bring the baby immediately to Imo State. Unfortunately, the day I was supposed to pick the baby, Ibeto and Udoji were arrested by the police.
That was how I was also arrested.” Ibeto, 50, said that she was compelled to sell the week-old baby because his mother didn’t want him. The child’s biological mother allegedly told Ibeto that her father impregnated her.
Ibeto said: “I was at home when a lady brought Bukky, who was due for labour. I was told the pathetic story of how Bukky’s dad got her pregnant.
Bukky wanted to do away with the pregnancy. She saw it as a product of abomination. I saw reasons with her. It would be an abomination if the public got to know.
“She was just 16 years old; I felt she was too young to carry the stigma of being impregnated by her father. I arranged with a woman, who was looking for the fruit of the womb to buy the baby.
Luckily, Bukky delivered a bouncing baby boy. I gave Bukky part of the money to start a new life and advised her to keep away from her father.”
Ibeto, who insisted that she didn’t do any wrong, said she was only trying to assist a traumatised teenager.
Ibeto said she was shocked when police came to arrest and accused her of inducing pregnant women to deliver so that she could sell their babies.
She added: “The police met a pregnant woman in my house and further accused me of inducing her. The police also accused me of impersonating as a medical doctor. I have never claimed to be a medical doctor; I’m just a traditional birth attendant.”
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, said information was received that Ibeto, of Bunmi Ajakaiye Street, Ajangbadi, used to induce pregnant women and when they eventually gave birth, she would sell the babies.
The commissioner disclosed that it was on the strength of that information that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Ajangbadi Police Station, led operatives to the compound, where Ibeto was allegedly found administering Intravenous Injection for Oju Nnamdi, who claimed to be sick and was five months pregnant.
He said: “When a search was conducted, a set of ‘drip,’ bags of other related drugs were recovered.”
No comments:
Post a Comment