The Operatives of Ogun state police command had apprehended a couple simply identifed as Onyebuchi and Oluchi Eze for selling their one-month-old baby for N50,000.
The couple, residents of Ilara Remo, a sleepy town tucked away in Remo North Local Government of Ogun State, confessed to have handed their baby to an unidentified woman on the promise of better care.
“The woman then gave them the sum of fifty thousand naira and they handed over the baby to her despite not knowing her from Adam,” police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi said in a statement.
The suspects were.arrested last Thursday and the yet-to-be-identified buyer is on the run.
“The suspects, Eze Onyebuchi and his wife Oluchi Eze were arrested on the 16 of December 2021, following an information received by policemen at Ode Remo divisional headquarters,” Mr Oyeyemi said.
The suspects told the police during interrogation that they had been directed to the buyer through a woman, Ruth Obajimi, who claimed that the buyer would help put the baby up for foster care.
They said Mrs Obajimi “told them that she is from the Human rights office and that she will help them to foster their child,” the police spokesman added.
The State Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, has ordered the immediate transfer of the suspects to the anti-human trafficking and Child Labour Unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further investigation.
He also directed a massive manhunt for the buyer who is currently on the run.
Human traffickers have often preyed on penury of their victims to rob them of their offsprings for peanuts. They in turn use the infants for untoward purposes including ritual killings.
In December 2020, the police busted a baby factory in Ofada-Mowe , another rural town in the Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of Ogun. Ten victims including four pregnant girls, aged between 13 and 24, and four children were rescued.