2 women arrested over sale of 3-day-old baby in Delta

Operatives of the Delta State Police Command have arrested two women for allegedly buying a three-day-old baby in Effurun, Uvwie LGA of the state.

The spokesman of the command, SP Bright Edafe, who disclosed this to newsmen in Asaba, said the suspects, Tessi Ikechukwu and Lauretta Akomen, were arrested by operatives of Ekpan police station.

Edafe said the arrest of the suspects followed a report at the station by a tricycle rider (named withheld).

He said one of the suspects, identified as Lauretta Akomen, 38, bought the baby from a traditional birth attendant’s home in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

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The police spokesman said teenage girls were harboured at the traditional home, where men had sex with them and when they are pregnant and delivered the babies were taken from them and sold to all shades of buyers.

According to him, on October 1, at about 6:30pm, a tricycle rider came to Ekpan police station and reported that while he was on his daily commercial operation, four women boarded his tricycle and on reaching Efurrun roundabout, two of them alighted.

He quoted the rider as saying, “One of the two women who alighted handed over a newborn baby boy to the women left in the tricycle, and he heard one of them saying that the balance had been paid and that when they got to their destination, they should inform her.’’

The PPRO said the tricycle rider diverted the two women – Tessi Ikechukwu, and Lauretta Akomen, and the newborn baby – to Ekpan police station.

“The suspect, Lauretta, also revealed that she was given a drug which she took for some time to make her look pregnant,” the state PPRO added.

Edafe explained that the Divisional Police Officer of Ekpan Police Station led operatives to the house of one Gloria (surname unknown) who acted as an agent between her and the traditional home.

He added that the suspects are in custody while a manhunt for their accomplices is on.

He said the Commissioner of Police in the command, Olufemi Abaniwonda, thanked the tricycle rider for being a patriotic citizen and urged others to emulate him.