&w=64&q=75)
A 24-year-old woman, identified as Blessing Okonkwo, has confessed to selling her three-year-old sibling (name withheld) at the cost of 410,000 naira to raise money for her traditional wedding and other needs.
Okonkwo is a resident of Mubi in Adamawa State, while her sibling lived with their mother, Hauwa Lawan, in Rimirgo in the Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State.
The suspect reportedly tricked her mother before taking the kid on the false pretence of enrolling him in a school in Mubi, some 40 kilometres away from Rimirgo.
After several weeks, their mother became worried as all her attempts to speak with her son over the phone were cunningly thwarted by Okonkwo.
Lawan resorted to flagging the situation to the police, which led to the arrest of the suspect.
Narrating the incident, Okonkwo said she sold the boy for 410,000 naira to a willing buyer, one Efunaya Nabufe, who trafficked the victim to Enugu city in the southeastern state of Enugu.
"I used the proceeds of the crime to buy a grinding machine so I can start a business and also gave my boyfriend ₦200,000 to buy items required for our traditional wedding," the suspect confessed to the police.
Mother in dismay
For her part, Lawan expressed dismay, wondering how her daughter could sell her sibling to a total stranger.
"She visited sometime last year and lied to me that she would be taking her kid brother to enrol him in a school in the city, seeing there's no good school in our village.
"Ever since she took away the boy I never heard from him because any time I called to hear his voice she kept telling me one lie or the other for one year now. I got tired of asking and since I least suspected my own daughter could do this to me, I didn't raise any alarm.
"As God will have it, she took a proposed husband home to her father in the southeast, the father demanded to know the whereabouts of his child first before attending to her marriage proposal.
"She then lied to him that the kid was dead, but the father consulted an oracle and was told the child was alive. He then threatened her and she opened up and told him the truth; that he was living with a woman in Enugu.
"When her father informed me, I reported the matter to the police who swiftly arrested her and her accomplice, the child trafficker, one Efunaya Nabufe," the distraught mother narrated.
Police confirm child trafficking incident
The Spokesperson of the Adamawa State Police Command, SP Suleiman Nguroje, who confirmed the incident, said Okonkwo and Nabufe are connected to the crime.
"On July 2, 2024, one Hauwa Lawan, a resident of Rimirgo in the Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, reported to the Adamawa State Police Command that her 3-year-old son was stolen.
"Immediately the Commissioner of Police, Dankombo Morris, ordered the Divisional Police Officer in Mubi South, SP Aaron Ezra to commence investigation and as God would have it two suspects, Blessing Friday, 24 and Efunaya Nabufe, 35 were apprehended in connection to the crime.
"As it stands, the CP has directed that discreet investigation be conducted after which all suspects, including the two who are giving useful information, would be charged to court according to the extant laws of the land," Nguroje said.