Couple arrested for dumping day-old baby in the bush

Ekiti State Police Command has arrested a couple for dumping a day-old baby in a bush in Ikere Ekiti.

Mr and Mrs. Dad Ojo of 9, Ikoyi Street, Ikere-Ekiti, were alleged to have dumped the baby in the bush after delivery, but passers by who heard the cry of the baby, alerted the police.

But the husband, who exonerated himself from the dastardly act, said he was not aware that his wife Adejoke had committed the act.

Mrs. Ojo gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on Wednesday morning in her Ikere home after labouring for nearly an hour without anybody around to help her or a midwife to assist in delivering the baby. The 26-year-old woman said it was poverty that compelled her to dump the baby in the bush, saying “there was no money to take care of herself even when she was pregnant.”

She said it was so bad that she could not register in any hospital for ante-natal and post-natal treatment.

She added that her major source of worry was how to take care of herself and the three children she already had for the man because her “husband is poor.”

The husband, however, said the woman was not hungry because he usually gave her money for food but the woman was jobless since her petty business collapsed about three years ago and he did not have enough money to help her revive the business.

He said he made between N500 and N1,000 daily as a commercial bus driver, out of which he would take care of himself, give his wife money for food and the three children.

The couple, who looked haggard when news men interrogated them at the Command Headquarters, had been remanded in police custody since then.