Godwin Udoh
Security operatives attached to the Delta State Police Command have arrested four persons with two babies in connection with child trafficking along Asaba/Benin expressway in Okpanam area of Delta State.
Investigation revealed that one Tolulope Bosede, 45, tricked her female cousin, Abiola Komolafe, 20, who was 9 months pregnant in pretense to give her job and that she would work and live with her friend, Nkaneme Melije in Onitsha, Anambra State.
Speaking to The Nigerian Xpress, in Asaba, Ms Komolafe said the day she arrived Onitsha, “I when into labour and delivered a baby boy, but my Aunty told me that my baby die an hour earlier.
“After few days with madam Nkaneme Melije, which I was supposed to work for as a maid, then sister Bosede said we are going back to Akure, Ondo State and unknown to me that Bosede have sold my baby to her friend”.
It was gathered that, on March 28, 2020, luck ran out on the mischievous ladies when they decided to take Abiola back home, to her.
According to the baby’s mother, on their way back to Akure, she told the bus driver to help her, stop at any police check point and that she has information to give and the driver obliged her accordingly and Bosede was arrested by police.
Police sources said the arrest of Tolulope Bosede, who sold her cousin’s baby to Nkaneme Melije for N600,000 and Melije later sold the boy to Ekunno Ifeyinwa, 56, and Josephine Unnoha, 57, for N900,000. Both Ifeyinwa and Unnoha claimed to a motherless baby home in Onora family house at Abba village, in Onitsha, Anambra State.
Bosede, while speaking to our correspondent, admitted to committing the crime and attributed it as act of ‘devil’, while pleading for forgiveness while her counterpart, Melije who claim to own provision shop in Onitsha, deny any involvement on the business of the stolen child and that, she was call to help and she took the baby boy to motherless home for safe keep.
The single mother of three children also added that, “the money I gave to Bosede was for the baby’s mother’s up keep and to take care of herself.”
On her part, Ifeyinwa said, “I keep baby whose mother can’t take care of them”. She admitted to have given N900,000 to Melije for the one-month-old baby and N1.8 million for the two-week-old baby.
Commissioner of Police for Delta State, Mr. Hafiz Inuwa, while briefing journalists, in Asaba, said investigation was ongoing after which they will face law.
He enjoined Deltans to comply strictly with the inter-state border shutdown and the curfew imposed within the state and every other measures geared towards the curtailing this dreaded Coronavirus pandemic in the state.
