Police rescue stolen baby, arrest suspect who faked pregnancy
The Ekiti State Police Command has successfully recovered a one-day-old baby boy who was stolen from the Oke-Iyimi Health Centre in Ado-Ekiti on Monday.
Ekiti State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Aribo, told journalists on Wednesday that the police acted quickly after receiving a distress call.
A cotton wool with a receipt left at the hospital by the culprit led police to a supermarket, where she was identified and arrested using CCTV footage.
The suspect, 34-year-old Deborah Ayeni, confessed to stealing the baby out of fear that her fiancé would abandon her after she suffered a miscarriage in March 2025.
She explained that she had been faking her pregnancy by wrapping clothes around her stomach ever since.
Ayeni’s fiancé had traveled to the United Kingdom in 2024 after their introduction.
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“I stole the baby because I needed it,” she said. “When I got to the hospital, I met them there, we were joking with the baby and I left with it after a while.
I was pregnant last year before my husband travelled to UK but I had miscarriage in March this year but I didn’t tell my husband that I lost the pregnancy. I’m not legally married yet but I did my introduction last year, I was thinking if I tell my husband that I lost my pregnancy, maybe he would leave me, this is my first time of stealing a baby.
I was not on admission when I went there, I pretended to have pregnancy by packing clothes in my stomach. I was playing with the mother on Sunday morning, we started playing because I understood Hausa language. Her husband told me to help him stay with the kid while he went out to get something. I stole the Baby around 4am and I saw Bike ten minutes thereafter.”
READ ALSO: Farmer rescues newborn baby buried alive
The baby’s father, Mustapha Aliyu, 29, said he was shocked by Ayeni’s actions, describing her as a “very jovial” person he met while his wife was giving birth.
Aliyu said Ayeni had claimed she was also at the hospital to deliver her own baby, but he later learned she had visited another hospital on Sunday, leading him to believe she had been scouting for a baby.
The Commissioner of Police has since returned the baby to his parents, and Ayeni remains in police custody.
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