From Freedom Ajala, Abakaliki
It was a dramatic scene at the premises of the Abakaliki Magistrate Court One Tuesday when the Police arraigned a 20 year-old, Favour Igboji, before the court for abandoning a one-day old baby girl, thereby causing her death.
Our reporter recalls that the suspect had been apprehended by the police last week from a near-by house where she had gone into hiding at Abofia- a suburb of Abakaliki capital city hours after she had delivered of a beautiful baby girl, wrapped her with some green leaves and dumped her in a nearby bush in the neighbourhood.
Her confessional statement before police investigators indicated that the suspect had stolen money from her boss in an undisclosed shop where she was working as a sales girl to enable her abort the baby since July last year. Police sources alleged that she had confessed to having met a medical doctor severally in a desperate bid to abort the baby.
The said medical doctor whose identity was also not disclosed was reported to have been giving her some drugs that rather sustained the baby in her womb and made the baby look prettier and healthier. It was therefore to Favour’s shock that the baby rather than die or be flushed out from her womb was even stronger. She demanded explanations from the doctor who was said to have counseled her not to abort the baby.
The suspect was also said to have severally traveled to her Ikwo village in a desperate search for a young man in his mid-twenties who allegedly got her pregnant last year but to no avail as she was told that her boyfriend has traveled to Lagos. This, according to family sources, compounded her woes and made her to decide to abandon the baby to cold and ant bites which eventually led to the baby’s death.
“When she delivered last week, it was fear that made her dump the baby around her neighbourhood. She said she was very scared,” said a police source who pleaded anonymity.
At her arraignment Tuesday on a one count-charge of murder, punishable under Section 327 of the Criminal Code cap 33, Vol. 1, Laws of Ebonyi State of Nigeria, the prosecutor, Ransom Egenkonye, took time to narrate to the court how the suspect confessed to having committed the act.
In her order to remand the suspect in prison, the presiding Magistrate, Stella Oguke reminded the suspect, who had no legal representation, of her right to approach a high court for her bail.
A mild drama however ensued minutes after the court had risen. The suspect, who lamented that she was very hungry and was given some biscuits and sachets of water, bluntly refused to join the female police personnel who were to take her to the Abakaliki federal prisons to their vehicle.
A visibly agitated Favour began to scream and shout for help that she does not want to go to prison. Her cries attracted the attention of people around the court premises to whom she tearfully narrated her story and blamed it all on the devil. “I didn’t know that I will still go to prison after saying the truth,” yelled the suspect to the crowd who appeared rather unsympathetic and instead rained abuses on her for causing the death of a new born baby when many are desperately searching for the fruit of the womb.
