The Nigeria Immigration Service, Oyo State Command, has discovered a ‘baby factory’ allegedly owned by one Mrs Stella, on Block B, House 8, Adebayo Oke Street, Sharp Corner, Oluyole area of Ibadan.
Two victims, including a pregnant lady, were rescued and three accomplices arrested at the factory.
The Comptroller, NIS, Oyo State Command, Saleh Abdullahi, said that the Zone F of the command discovered the ‘baby factory’.
According to him, the alleged operator of the factory, Stella, is now at large.
Abdullahi said the place was discovered in the process of rescuing a 16-year-old girl, Mary Yawa, from one Mrs Kehinde Omotoso of the Awolowo Bashorun area of Ibadan on January 28, 2019.
The victim, Yawa, was said to have earlier delivered a baby on the premises on August 28, 2018.
Abdullahi stated, “In the process of investigation, Yawa, a Togolese, revealed that she was impregnated by one Adewale when she served as a housemaid to one Alhaja from Saki.
“A few days to her delivery, the said Alhaja took her to Stella, who is not a nurse, and on whose premises she was delivered of a baby on August 22, 2018.
“After her delivery, precisely on August 27, 2018, the Alhaja from Saki came to the house with an Igbo woman and took her child away, while Yawa was given to Omotoso in whose custody she was rescued.
“The Nigeria Immigration Service visited Stella’s house but did not meet her. Officers met a 25-year-old girl, Odunayo Abiodun, who claimed to be Stella’s area sister, and another 21-year-old pregnant lady, Esther Hadji.”
The comptroller said the heavily pregnant Hadji, a Togolese, claimed that she was brought to Stella’s ‘baby factory’ by her brother, Kodjo.
Abdullahi said the immigration and the police had been on a manhunt for Stella and the Alhaja from Saki.
According to him, Stella’s house was met under lock and key.
He vowed that Stella and the Alhaja would soon be arrested and prosecuted.
The two victims and three accomplices were later handed over to the representatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons in the presence of journalists.
Yawa told journalists that the Alhaja lied to her that the baby had been given to Adewale’s mother.
She, however, said she did not know the whereabouts of her baby and the said Adewale.
Hadji, on her part, stated that Stella told her brother, Kodjo, that she would assist in taking care of the baby whenever she gave birth.
She said Stella later told her after four days of living with her that the baby would be collected from her and given to the mother of the person who impregnated her.
“I knew she was lying and I told her I would think about it,” Hadji said.