A man and his wife living on Unity Road,
Mosafote, in the Ibafo area of Ogun State, have been taken into police custody
for alleged trading in children.
The suspects were identified simply as Morenike
and Shittu.
LR News learnt that their
neighbours became suspicious a few months ago when the woman would allegedly
bring a child home in the evening and took the child away the following day.
She was said to have done so on four occasions
before she was caught on Monday with a four-year-old girl, who was reportedly
abducted in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Residents identified the landlady of the couple
as Habibat Oresanya, sister of Shittu.
It was gathered that neighbours started to
closely monitor Morenike after she brought in the four-year-old girl around 9pm
on Sunday.
She had strapped the victim to her back and was
leaving the neighborhood when a community leader, Chief Toyeeb Balogun,
confronted her.
Balogun, who spoke with our correspondent, said
he took her to the palace of Baale of Mosafote for questioning.
He said, “People have been saying that Iya Ahmed
(Morenike) bring strange children into the community in the evening and take
them away the following day.
“On Sunday, October 8, she came home with a girl
of about five-year-old. The girl looked malnourished. The next day, she left
home with her and did not return with her.
“After that incident, some neighbours
reported to the baale and he told them to monitor her. Around 12pm on
Monday, some residents came to tell me that they saw her leaving the community
with another girl. I rushed to meet her and asked her who the girl was. She
said she was her sister’s child in Egbeda.
“We took her to the palace. When we got there,
she told the baale that the girl’s mother is in Ipaja, Lagos State. We
then took her to FSARS in Warewa. Her husband came to the station and told the
police that she usually brought the girls from Ilorin (Kwara State).
“They asked him what the children were used for,
but he said he did not know. Both of them have been detained. This is the fifth
time she would be seen with an unknown child.”
The baale, Chief Sakiru Ademuyiwa, said
Morenikeji was asked to call the parents of the girl on the telephone to come
to the palace.
He explained that he decided to involve the
police in the case when the alleged parents did not show up.
Ademuyiwa said, “She called somebody who claimed
to be the mother of the girl. The person said she lived in Ipaja. I asked her
to come to my palace with the father of the girl. I waited for several hours,
but the so-called parents did not show up.
“When she was interrogated by the police, she
said the parents of the girl were in Ijebu. But the child told us that she
lived with her parents in Agodi, Ibadan, Oyo State. She said her father’s name
is TK. I have told the police to handle the matter very well.”
A resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said, “We have been seeing her for some time now with unknown children. We
wondered where she got those children from. The landlady does not live in the
community,” he added.
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