A 33-year-old woman, Olaide Adekunle, has been arrested by the police for allegedly selling off her 18-month-old baby to a yet-to-be-identified buyer at the rate of N600,000 to settle a bank loan.
SP Abimbola Oyeyemi, the spokesperson of Ogun State Police Command, who made this known said the suspect was arrested following a complaint lodged at Sango divisional headquarters by the woman’s husband, Nureni Rasaq.
The suspect’s husband said reported that his wife, Olaide Adekunle, left home for Lagos on the 15th of March 2023 with their baby girl by the name Moridiat Rasaq, but returned home without the baby.
He stated further that all efforts to know what happened to the baby proved abortive as the woman was unable to give any reasonable account of the whereabouts of the said baby.
Oyeyemi said upon the report, the DPO Sango division, CSP Dahiru Saleh, detailed his detectives to go after the said woman, and she was promptly arrested. On interrogation, the suspect confessed that she has sold her baby to someone in Lagos at the rate of six hundred thousand nairas (#600,000).
When asked the reason for her action, she stated that she borrowed money from a microfinance bank, and when she was unable to pay back the money, the bank agents started disturbing her and threatening to deal decisively with her. It was consequent upon this that she ran to Lagos and started hawking sachet water. She said it was while hawking that she met a man who introduced her to the woman that eventually bought the child in Lagos.
The PPRO said the acting Commissioner of Police, DCP Babakura Muhammed, has directed that the suspect be transferred to State Criminal Investigation Departments for further investigation and possible recovery of the baby.
