Ogun State Police Command says it has arrested a 28-year-old woman, Anuoluwapo Joshua, for allegedly stealing a three-year-old baby, Patience Francis, at Redemption Camp, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Police report indicated that the suspect had stolen the child since July 2017 during the monthly Holy Ghost congress, but she was apprehended on 29th December, 2017 at the Youth Centre in the camp after a programme.
Patience was discovered missing after her mother returned from the new auditorium where she had gone to pack her children’s clothes.
Since then, police report further indicated, all efforts to know the whereabouts of the child had proved abortive.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said, “The suspect ran out of luck on the 29th December when the child was sighted inside the Youth Centre at Redemption Camp during the children’s end of the year party organised by the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
“On receiving the information, the Divisional Police Officer, Redemption Camp division, 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 she was promptly arrested.”
Oyeyemi said the suspect had confessed to the crime.
He said, “She admitted that she lured the child out of her parents’ sight and took her to Ofada area, where she has been taking care of the child since then.
“Investigation further revealed that the suspect had allegedly got pregnant for somebody in Lagos but travelled to the north, where she claimed she has been delivered of a baby girl.
“But when she returned from the North, she did not return with the baby. This made the man who allegedly impregnated her to mount pressure on her to bring his child for him to see.
“She later informed her relatives that she was travelling to Nasarawa State to bring the child but went to Redemption Camp where she stayed for some days before succeeding in stealing the child, which she presented to her relations as her daughter.”
Meanwhile, the state Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, has ordered the immediate transfer of the suspect to the state Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Abeokuta, for further investigation and prosecution.
The child has since been united with her parents.
