A 23-year-old Nigerian woman has confessed, narrating how she stole a day-old baby from a hospital bed in Adamawa State.
The woman, Maryam Sani, took the baby from a clinic in Ngurore, a community in Yola South Local Government Area.
Maryam, confessing the act to newsmen, said that after having a miscarriage three months into her pregnancy but did not tell her husband, she needed to come up with a baby when her supposed pregnancy reached full term.
She revealed that when she got to the clinic for a check-up because she was feeling unwell and found herself in a ward where there was no one around, she saw an opportunity to take a baby from a bed whose mother and other people were outside sleeping.
“I didn’t carry the newborn baby girl for any evil reason. I took her because I loved her and needed her for myself,” she said.
She added that when she took the baby home, nobody suspected her of anything since she appeared to be ‘pregnant’.
“The community believed I was pregnant and we did the naming ceremony without my husband knowing how the baby actually came about,” Maryam said.
However, the false motherhood ended for Maryam when she was arrested after her biological parents reported the matter to the police, whose investigation led to her arrest.
The Police Public Relations Officer in Adamawa State, SP Suleiman Nguroje, has vowed that the woman will face the law and answer for her crime.
“The command will never allow criminals of any type to have a field day in Adamawa State, and Maryam will be duly prosecuted,” Nguroje said.