The Oyo State Police Command has arrested a 60-year-old woman, Asabi Adebayo, for allegedly buying five babies at N1 million each from Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.
The police said Adebayo planned to travel abroad with the babies to resell them but ran out of luck when she brought them to an orphanage in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, to obtain a certified police report for them.
Parading the suspect and the babies yesterday at the Eleyele Police Headquarters, the Commissioner of Police, Leye Oyebade, said the woman would have succeeded in her plan if not for the patriotic action of the officials of the orphanage, who alerted the police at the Iyaganku Police Station.
The suspect, who said she hailed from Lagos State, also holds a British passport.
The ages of the babies, (two boys and three girls) range from two years, eight months, seven months, six months and four months.
The babies have been transferred to the State Ministry of Women Affairs, Child Welfare while the suspect is assisting the police in their investigation.
Mr. Oyebade said officers, who accompanied the suspect to Port-Harcourt, where she claimed to have bought the babies, have not been able to apprehend the sellers.
The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in Iyaganku, Mr Ojopagogo, said: “A woman, who operates an orphanage came to our station last Thursday and reported to us that a 60-year-old woman came to them that she had five children and that she needed police report for the children to be flown abroad .
“Our detectives, led by a Superintendent of Police (SP) from the Juvenile Welfare Section, went to arrest the suspect.
“After her arrest, the suspect told us that she got the children for N5million and that she bought the children from a woman in Port-Harcourt. We travelled with the suspect to Port-Harcourt, unfortunately we could not find the woman”.
