Operatives of the Nigeria Police in Anambra State have arrested a couple for allegedly trafficking in a month old baby.
The police, who foiled the successful trafficking of the baby, disclosed that the couple confessed to buying the child for N30,000 after they were arrested at Bridgehead Onitsha, while travelling to Anambra from Lagos, after a tip off by a fellow passenger.
Spokesperson of the state police command, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, said: “The interception was made at Bridgehead in Onitsha on December 17, 2023. The couple were travelling in a luxury bus belonging to a popular transport company with the baby when a co-passenger observed that the mother could not breastfeed the baby despite its cry for food in the course of the journey.
“The good samaritan put a call through to Anambra police on its Control Room hotline in Awka, which then relayed the information to the police at Bridgehead in Onitsha. The police laid in wait for the luxury bus as described and intercepted it in the evening hours. The couple and the baby were identified and brought down for questioning. They confessed buying the child from its mother in Ajah, Lagos for the sum of N30,000.”
Ikenga said the Commissioner of Police, Aderemi Adeoye, thanked the public spirited citizen for his concern by giving the information that led to the rescue of the child.
He added that he has directed that the couple be handed to the National Agency for Prohibition in Trafficking of Persons (NAPTIP) for further investigation and prosecution, while the baby has been handed to the Ministry of Women Affairs for care by the state government.
