By Chiemelie Ezeobi
For dumping her day-old baby by the roadside around 3am on Tuesday, two hours after her birth, the Ajangbadi Police Division of the Lagos State Police Command arrested 31-year-old Ifunanya Eme on Thursday.
The single mother, who claimed she dropped her baby because she had no means of feeding her, said the decision was made easier because the father of the baby abandoned her and ran away.
THISDAY gathered that it was a passerby that alerted the police about the baby, who was by then crying profusely from the stinging bite of the cold weather.
After the police had picked up the baby, they had first taken her to a nearby hospital for proper check up, before they initiated an investigation to discover the mother.
Their first clue came when some neighbours alerted the Divisional Police Officer, Alim Musa, a Chief Superintendent of Police, about the pool of blood trickling out of a neighbour’s house.
When the police got to the residence, the suspect was seen recuperating, while the baby was nowhere to be seen, as she was said to have delivered the baby herself in her room.
Upon questioning, the neighbours had attested to the fact that she was pregnant, which prompted the police to question her further, upon which she capitulated and admitted to her offence.
The suspect, who was paraded at the police command headquarters in Ikeja, Lagos, said the future had looked bleak for her.
Although she works as a sales person in a shop that sells tricycles, she claimed she had just gotten the job and that the pay wasn’t much.
She said, “I gave up my daughter because I had no help and my mother is dead. I don’t even know the whereabouts of her father.
“The only thing I know is that he told me he was traveling. Since that day till now, the number he gave me can’t be reached.”
