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By Abiodun OBA
A couple suspected of trafficking a one-month-old baby from Lagos to Onitsha has been arrested at Bridgehead in Onitsha on Sunday.
In a statement signed by the Anambra Command Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, the couple was travelling in a luxury bus belonging to a popular transport company with the baby when a co-passenger observed that the mother could not breastfeed the baby despite its cry for food in the course of the journey.
“The good Samaritan put a call through to Anambra Police on its control room hotline in Awka, which then relayed the information to the police at Bridgehead in Onitsha.
“The police laid in wait for the luxury bus described and intercepted it in the evening hours. The couple and the baby were identified and brought down for questioning,” he said.
He noted that she confessed to buying the child from its mother in Ajah, Lagos, for the sum of N30,000.
He further said that the Commissioner of Police, Aderemi Adeoye, thanked the public-spirited citizen for his humane concern in giving the information that led to the rescue of the child.
He stressed that Adeoye commended the police operatives for their vigilance and dedication to duty.
He said that the commissioner directed that the couple be handed over to the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking of Persons (NAPTIP) for further investigation and prosecution.
Ikenga said that the baby had been handed over to the state Ministry of Women Affairs for care pending an investigation.
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