Blessing Okonkwo, 24, has confessed to selling her three-year-old sibling, Friday Okonkwo, for N410,000 in Adamawa State.
According to her, she tricked her mother by taking Friday under the pretense of enrolling him in a school in Mubi, a city 40 kilometers away where she lived.
Instead, citing the severe economic hardship, she sold him for N410,000 to a willing buyer, Efunaya Nabufe, who trafficked the child to Enugu city in the South-East.
“I used the proceed of the crime to buy a grinding machine so I can start a business and also gave my boyfriend N200,000 to buy items required for our tradition wedding,” Blessing said.
Speaking on the incident, mother of the victim, Hauwa Lawan who lives in Rimirgo in the Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State expressed dismay, wondering how her own daughter could sell her sibling to a total stranger.
“She visited some time last year and lied to me that she would be taking her kid brother to enroll him in a school in the city, seeing there’s no good school in our village.
“Ever since she took away the boy I never heard from him, because any time I called to hear his voice she kept telling me one lie or the other for one year now. I got tired of asking and since I least suspected my own daughter could do this to me, I didn’t raise any alarm.
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“As God will have it, she took a proposed husband home to her father in the southeast, the father demanded to know the whereabouts of his child first before attending to her marriage proposal.
“She then lied to him that the kid was dead, but the father consulted an oracle and was told the child was alive. He then threatened her and she opened up and told him the truth; that he was living with a woman in Enugu.
“When her father informed me, I reported the matter to the police who swiftly arrested her and her accomplice, the child trafficker, one Efunaya Nabufe.”
Spokesperson for the Police in Adamawa State, Suleiman Nguroje, however confirmed the arrest of Okonkwo and Nabufe in connection to the crime.
“On July 2, 2024, one Hauwa Lawan, a resident of Rimirgo in the Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, reported to the Adamawa State Police Command that her 3-year old son, Friday Okonkwo was stolen.
“Immediately the Commissioner of Police, Dankombo Morris, ordered the Divisional Police Officer in Mubi South, SP Aaron Ezra to commence investigation and as God would have it two suspects, Blessing Friday, 24 and Efunaya Nabufe, 35 were apprehended in connection to the crime.
“As it stands, the CP has directed that discreet investigation be conducted after which all suspects, including the two who are giving useful information would be charged to court according to the extant laws of the land,” Nguroje said on Friday.
