A 26-year old house wife, who crossed the borders of two states, Ogun and Oyo, to steal a three-week old baby has been nabbed by operatives of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS), Abeokuta.
The suspect, Bunmi Adebayo of Magboro near Mowe, a suburb of Ogun State, who had feigned pregnant to her husband, surreptitiously stole the baby boy from his teenage mother in the ancient town of Ife in Osun State.
She was said to have got back home and informed her husband, one Adegboyega, that their expected baby had been delivered, and planned his christening on Tuesday, July 9.
The apparently happy but inquisitive husband, out of curiosity and in obeisance to culture, demanded for the placenta, thereby throwing the child thief into disarray, a development the man became uncomfortable and suspicious of.
The husband quickly intimated operatives of the FSARS, who raced to her Magboro residence and arrested her.
On interrogation, Bunmi owned up to the effect that she actually stole the baby, attributing her action to the desire to please her husband. She later blamed the devil, saying she was under one form of spell and another.
Meanwhile, the dispossessed mother, Eniola Odebode had, since the ugly incident on Tuesday, July 2, 2018, been gripped by sadness, resulting in her being hospitalized.
Consequently, on the order of the state Commissioner of Police, Iliyasu Ahmed’, a call was put across to the police in Ife, where the matter was initially reported.
A team of police operatives, led by one Sergeant Kolade Samson, was detached to Ogun State, for transfer of the case to Osun.
Accompanying the police detectives were parents of the tot, Peter and Eniola, who were full of praises for the police, for a job well done
Narrating how she perfected the child theft, the suspect said: “I went to Ife/Modakeke Junction where I met the lady with her mother, and greeted them. I then told them I was in a dare need of an apartment for rent. The two women, out of pity, volunteered to help me out. But for some reasons, the lady didn’t want to back the baby, for which I tricked her to let me back him. While her mother and I went on one motorbike, she mounted another one, just to show me the apartment. When we alighted in front of the house, we waited for the lady to no avail. I then asked the mother if she had money on her to pay the bike man. Her response was in the negative. It was then I told her to let me go to an ATM gallery, to cash some amount of money. That was how I bolted with the baby
“On getting home, information reached my husband that I had been delivered of a baby boy. He came and demanded for the placenta. When I was not forthcoming with it, he suspected that I must have stolen the baby. I almost fought him for accusing me of child theft. It was thereafter, I was arrested”, Bunmi stated.
