A 20-year-old girl, Miracle Kalu, who allegedly got pregnant out of wedlock, delivered and sold her baby for N130,000, has been arrested alongside four of her accomplice.
Kalu who hails from Ohafia in Abia State said the lack of funds to take care of her health condition, or fend for the baby forced her into selling the 28-day-old baby to Cecilia Okafor, 40, after birth.
Narrating how her ordeal started, Kalu who is based in Imo State, said after she got pregnant, her lover denied been responsible for the pregnancy, leaving her with nothing.
The bubble about the sales of the baby burst when two of her accomplice, Patrick Mbama, 41, and Ogechi Chinonso Ekwebele, 30, were arrested at Anthony area of Lagos, while returning from Imo State, where they had travelled to smuggle the baby to Lagos.
Parading the suspects on Monday, at the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja, the Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem Odumosu revealed Mbama and Ekwebele had pretended to be a couple when they were arrested.
Odumosu revealed that the said couple were intercepted in aToyota Sienna SUV carrying seven passengers.
He said the baby was crying in the vehicle and the supposed mother of the child, Ekwebele was advised to breastfeed the baby.
The Lagos police boss said the hesitation of Ekwebele to breastfeed her baby raised other passengers’ suspicion.
Odumosu said: “ On April 26, 2020, at 2a.m., police officers from Anthony Division, on enforcement duty at Anthony Oke pin down point intercepted a Toyota Sienna SUV carrying seven passengers.
Among the passengers are, Patrick Mbama, and Ogechi Chinonso Ekwebele, traveling together with a baby of about a month old, suspected to be stolen. “
They were coming from Orlu, Imo State.
All the occupants of the vehicle were arrested for violating the ban on inter states travel and the vehicle is impounded.
Upon questioning, this particular childless couple claimed that a childless man and wife in Lagos had paid for the said baby.
The childless couple, Izuchukwu Okafor, 51, and Cecilia Okafor, 40, who ordered for the baby were arrested. “
The name of the child’s parent as contained in the birth certificate recovered is that of the buyers.
The baby’s date of birth was dated March 23, 2020.
The biological parents of the baby were traced.
The baby is at the social welfare department of the Lagos State Governmmet, and if the biological mother wants the baby back, she may have to apply.”
Kalu who spoke to journalists said she was an orphan and a secondary school dropout.
Making confessional statement, she said:
“ When I got pregnant, my boyfriend’ whose house I do not know, abandoned me. He denied the pregnancy saying he was not responsible for it.
“ Since I was leaving with my elder sister who is also struggling, I had to live the house and look for a means of survival.
I agreed to giving birth to the baby at God’s Own Maternity in Imo State, and sell the baby afterwards.”
Asked how she spent the N130,000, she was paid, Kalu said: “ I bought drugs, and took care of my health, beacuse I have Ulcer.
” On her part, Okafor, said it was the quest to have a child of her own that forced her into buying the baby. She said: “ Being barren for 15years was not easy. So when I heard there was a girl who was pregnant, and did not want to keep the baby, I had to take care of her. I took care of her from antenatal till she gave birth.
She told me she had asthma and that was why she agreed to sell the baby. I paid her N130,000 for the baby and she told me she was an orphan.
” A police source whose identity cannot be revealed, disclosed that Kalu, is notorious for the act, as it was not her first time of giving birth and selling off her baby.
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