•No, you sold our 18-month-old child–Husband
By Funke Busari
The last has not been heard about the incident involving a 33-year-old woman, Olaide Adekunle, who allegedly sold her 18-month-old baby to a yet unidentified buyer for N600,000.
Olaide is currently in police custody. Her spouse, Nureni Rasaq, 37, had reported her to the police over the disappearance of their only child.
However, Nureni is now lamenting that despite the police intervention, his daughter is still missing. He’s appealing to Nigerians to come to his aid to help bring back his only child.
Olaide, who hails from Igbo-Ora in Oyo State, had allegedly travelled with the baby to her father’s house in Igando, Lagos, but failed to bring the child back. She had allegedly left for Lagos in search of greener pastures to repay a debt she was owing a microfinance bank. She said when she got to Lagos, she started hawking articles, in spite of her father’s entreaty to return to her husband. She said she didn’t want to return to a man who had been maltreating her and didn’t know her family.
According to her, her father also made her life unbearable but she decided to endure.
When Saturday Sun contacted Nureni, he said he was seeking help to recover his missing daughter through the police and the media.
“I regret that things turned out this way after I reported the incident at the station, because no headway has been made. All I want is the return of my daughter,” he added.
He said he had paid off his wife’s debts on many occasions, but he was now tired.
“In fact, she had left home at a point, but because of our child, I asked her to return home. This was the second time she travelled in search of money for repayment of loans, but I usually give her what I can afford to trade with.”
Nureni added that his wife was always squandering resources meant for her merchandise.
But the woman blamed her predicament on financial, health and marital challenges, adding that it was because she needed money to take care of herself that she embarked on the journey that plunged her into trouble.
Olaide, while speaking on the incident at the Ogun State Police Command, Eleweran, accused her husband of not providing for her, saying she needed to hawk wares in order to feed, take care of her health and pay some overwhelming debts.
She also narrated that her husband was always beating her. She said though she told him that she was going to work, she actually wanted a getaway from domestic violence. She said she also wanted to work to repay some loans she took from a microfinance bank.
Olaide told Saturday Sun that she left her first husband, with whom she had three children, to be with Nureni.
She admitted leaving home in February with their child but returned home without the baby. But she denied selling her child.
“I didn’t sell the baby to anyone in Lagos,” she said. “Fraudsters deceived me and collected my baby.”
She blamed two people – one Damilare and a certain Aunty Grace – whose homes, relatives or whereabouts she didn’t know, as those that deceived her and took her child away. The two, she said, were helping her take care of her baby while she went about hawking water and soft drinks in traffic. She said the duo disappeared with her baby.
She said Damilare, a man, had approached her while hawking in the traffic with her baby strapped to her back on a sunny day. The man, she recalled, told her she shouldn’t be hawking in the sun with an innocent baby strapped to her back. She said the man said he would help her by taking her to his elder sister.
According to her, they agreed that Damilare’s sister would help baby-sit for her and after the day’s work, she could come for her child.
“He took me to the General Hospital in Igando, where we met the woman. She told me she helps people. I don’t know her name, but Damilare called her Grace. She said she’s a nurse. She promised to assist me and that I should not be hawking in the sun with my baby,” she recalled.
She said this happened for about a month. She said the duo asked for her account details and subsequently sent her N50, 000 “to help me because of the cash crunch then. They promised to give me more later.”
She narrated that another N300,000 was later transferred through a POS Operator’s account, but she discovered that the POS Operator only transferred N270,000 to her. She said another N300,000 was also sent to her other account, adding that the debit card was with her husband in Ifo, Ogun State. She said her baby was still with her while the monies were being transferred to her accounts.
She said her baby was taken away on March 31 in front of the General Hospital, Igando by Aunty Grace and another woman after telling her that they wanted to buy some stuff for the baby. She said on April 2 when she realised that the baby had been taken away, she called her husband to inform him that their child had been stolen by fraudsters. She said she couldn’t comprehend what had happened to her or how they collected her child.
Speaking amidst sobs, Olaide said she could not understand if her suffering was responsible for her inability to understand what was happening to her or if it was the money she was given that made her vulnerable. When asked about the man who introduced her to the woman, the distraught mother claimed she had also not seen him.
“My husband asked me to come home so that we could report the incident at the police station, but I told him that I didn’t want to come back home. I was worried that the police would turn the case against me and say the money I received was in exchange for the sale of my baby. But I agreed with him that he should report the incident at the police station. But he is now accusing me of selling the child when he discovered the sum of N300,000 in my account. I didn’t sell my child. I cannot sell the only child I gave birth to for this man. I cannot sell my child because I want to feed she said,” she said.
She said the money transferred into her account by the duo was largely unspent, although she said she had spent some money searching for the missing child. She said she called Aunty Grace who had kept assuring her that her child was safe.
Olaide’s husband admitted he had been beating her, but claimed the beating was just on two occasions. He wondered why beating her twice would justify her decision to sell his daughter.
Asked if he knew his wife’s father, he aid no, explaining that each time he asked that she should take him to her father, Olaide would disagree.
He said Olaide always told him that she did not want the husband to meet her father because “my father is the one that messed up my life.”
Nureni further explained that when he kept insisting that he wanted to meet her family, she took him to her maternal home in Eredo. He is also begging Nigerians to help him locate his daughter.
Meanwhile the acting Commissioner of Police in Ogun State, Babakura Muhammed, has directed that the suspect be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department for further investigation and possible recovery of the baby.
