Police have arrested a 28-year-old woman who allegedly stole a 3-year-old baby at Redemption Camp along the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway.
The Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the suspect reportedly stole the child during the monthly Holy Ghost Congress held in July.
According to him, the child’s mother had reported that her baby was stolen by an unknown person when she went to pack the children’s clothes at the new auditorium where she had gone for prayers with her husband.
”Luck, however, ran out on the suspect on December 29 when the child was sighted inside the youth centre at Redemption Camp during the church organised children’s end of the year party,” Oyeyemi said.
“On receiving the information, the Divisional Police Officer, RCCG Division, SP Olaiya Martins, led detectives to the centre where they waited until the end of the programme when the suspect came out to pick the child and was promptly arrested.
“’She has since confessed to the crime. She admitted that she lured the child out of her parents’ sight and took her to Ofada area where she has been taken care of the child since then,” he added.
The Command’s spokesman said investigation further revealed that the suspect had earlier been impregnated by someone in Lagos and travelled to the northern part of the country where she claimed to have given birth to a baby girl.
He said: “When she came back from the North, she didn’t come with the baby, which made the man who impregnated her to be putting pressure on her to bring his child for him.”
“She later informed her relatives that she was going to Nasarawa State to bring the child but went to Redeemed Camp where she stayed for some days before succeeding in stealing the child which she presented to her relations as her daughter.”
The Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Ilyasu, consequently ordered the immediate transfer of the suspect to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further investigation and prosecution.
