Police in Ogun State have arrested a woman for allegedly selling her three-week-old baby for N600,000.
Twenty-three-year-old Mary Olatayo, a call girl, was arrested on August 18 following a complaint by a man who claimed he was the father of the baby at Mowe Divisional Police Headquarters in Ogun State.
The man reportedly told the police that he had a relationship with Olatayo, culminating in her pregnancy and subsequent birth of the baby in question.
He said when Olatayo became pregnant he rented her an apartment where she lived until she gave birth to a baby boy.
But Olatayo suddenly disappeared with the baby from the apartment three weeks after the baby was born, the man added.
Olatayo was said to have moved into a hotel where she had reportedly gone to ‘hook up’ with another man.
“All efforts to know where the baby is proved futile,” Ogun police spokesperson Abimbola Oyeyemi quoted the man as saying.
The DPO of Mowe Division, SP Folake Afeniforo, acting on the man’s report, detailed detectives to the scene where they arrested the suspect, Opeyemi said.
On interrogation, Oyeyemi said Olatayo “confessed to the police that she has sold the baby to someone in Anambra State at the rate of six hundred thousand Naira. She confessed that it was her friend, Chioma Esther Ogbonna, who led her to the buyer in the state and that they both shared the money equally.”
Her confession led to the arrest of Chioma who Oyeyemi said also corroborated Mary’s claims.
According to Oyeyemi, police investigation showed that Olatayo, a native of Omu-Aran in Kwara State, “is a call girl who sees the baby as a disturbance to her business, hence she decided to do away with the baby,” adding that Olatayo had an accomplice in Imo called Chioma, “who quickly contacted the buyer in Anambra State.”
Commissioner of Police Lanre Bankole has ordered the transfer of the suspects to the anti-human trafficking and child labour unit of the state CIID for further investigations.
He also directed that everything legal be done to recover the baby.
