Serial kidnapper selling kids arrested by vigilant community members

A woman simply identified as Morenike has been arrested after she was unable to provide useful answers when questioned over a four-year-old girl she brought home about 9p.m. Sunday last week.

According to her neighbours, this will be the fourth time Morenike will be bringing a strange child with findings revealing that the girl abducted by the suspect was kidnapped in the Oyo State, capital of Ibadan.

Residents also revealed that whenever the suspect abducted children in Ogun State, she takes them to Oyo State to sell, and if it was Lagos she stole the children from, she would move to Oyo State, to sell them for money.

Reports say Morenike had strapped the abducted girl to her back and was making her way out of the community when she was confronted and questioned by Chief Toyeeb Balogun, the community leader.

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The community leader said he took her to his palace where Morenike was questioned but she couldn’t give useful answers as to who the four-year-old girl was, prompting him to hand her over to the police.

Balogun said: “People have been saying that Iya Ahmed (Morenike) used to bring strange children into the community in the evening and take them away the following day. On October 8, she came in with a girl of about four-years-old. The girl looked malnourished. The next day, she left home with the girl and didn’t return with her.

“After that incident, some neighbours reported to the Baale. He told them to start monitoring her. About 12p.m. on Sunday, some residents came to call me that they saw her leaving the community with another girl. I rushed to meet and ask her about the identity of the girl.

“She said the girl was her sister’s child. She said her sister lives at Egbeda. We took her to the palace. When we got there, she told the Baale that the girl’s mother was in Ipaja. We then took her to FSARS office in Warewa. Her husband came to the station and told the police that she usually brought girls from Ilorin, Kwara State.

“They asked him what the children were used for, he said he did not know. Both of them have been detained. This is the fourth time Morenike would be seen with an unknown child.”

As at the time of filing in this report, the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer(PPRO) ASP, Abimbola Oyeyemi was yet to officially comment on the matter with reports suggesting investigations into the case were still ongoing.

 

 

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