Blessing Iruoma, Port Harcourt
The Rivers State Police Command has arrested three women over alleged involvement in child trafficking.
The suspects, Mercy Promise, Joy Ikechukwu and Ngozi Ogbonna were paraded on Wednesday by the State Criminal Investigation Department, in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
The prime suspect, Joy Ikechukwu on interview told newsmen that she wanted to help a woman who lost her four children to death.
Mrs. Ikechukwu narrated that a Committee was set up to look into the woman’s plight, explaining that she got in contact with one “Mama Ejima and she gave me N700,000 for purchase of a baby boy for the woman”.
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Also speaking to newmen, Mercy Promise, another member of the alleged child trafficking syndicates, said she was arrested in a motor park when she wanted to put the biological mother of the child in a bus enroute Akwa/Icon state from Port Harcourt.
Miss Promise revealed that the mother of the child spoke in Akwa/Ibom language and told the people at that motor park that her baby was collected from her which led to her arrest by the police.
The arrest of Miss Promise led to arrest of another member of the gang Ngozi Ogbonna an auxiliary nurse in a medical laboratory who facilitated the buying of the baby.
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Miss Ogbonna in her confessional statement disclosed that she also took the baby to conduct medical test on him.
Spokesperson to the state Police Command, DSP, Omoni Nnamdi, was present during the parade of the suspects at the state CID premises in Port Harcourt.
Meanwhile mama Ejima who allegedly contacted the syndicates to buy the baby as at press was still at large.