The police have arrested a 14-year-old housemaid, Favour Iwuozo in Ogun State for allegedly abducting the baby of her boss.
Police authorities said in a statement issued on Tuesday that the suspect ran away with the two-year-old victim to neighbouring Lagos.
Iwuozo, according to the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi, was nabbed following a complaint lodged at Sagamu Divisional Headquarters by one Victoria Nwafor.
According to the police spokesman, the complainant reported that she saw the suspect on December 22, 2021, with a very sick boy in Yaba Lagos.
“She stated further that the little girl was begging for alms under the pretence that the small boy is her younger brother and that their parents died in a ghastly accident in December 2020,” the statement read.
The woman was said to have taken both of them to her house in Sagamu in order to take care of the little boy whose health condition had worsened.
Although the young boy full recovered, the police spokesman said the suspect wanted to singlehandedly take the boy to Imo State, a situation which aroused the woman’s suspicion, hence her report at the police station.
On how the suspect succeeded in kidnapping the boy, Oyeyemi said she took the victim from the church during the Sunday school period, adding that the Sunday school teacher released the baby to her after identifying her with the baby’s mother.
“Upon the report, the Divisional Police Officer, Sagamu division, CSP Okiki Agunbiade detailed his detectives to go and bring the girl and the little boy.
“On interrogation, the girl confessed that she was a maid to the mother of the little boy and that she left with the boy since 19th of December 2021, with the intention of taking the boy to Amraku Umorsu in Isiala/Mbano local government area of Imo State.
“She explained further that she decided to beg for alms in order to raise transport fare to Imo State,” the police spokesman added.
Reacting to the incident, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Lanre Bankole ordered that the baby’s parents be contacted urgently, while the case should be forwarded to Lagos State Command whose jurisdiction the crime was actually committed.
