A couple caught trafficking a one-month-old infant from Lagos have been arrested, according to the Anambra State Police Command.
The interception was made at the River Niger Bridgehead in Onitsha on December 17, 2023, according to a statement released on Tuesday by DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, the public relations officer for the state police.
Ikenga said the couple was traveling on a deluxe bus owned by a well-known transportation provider, even though their identities were kept a secret.
The statement read, “The couple were travelling in a luxury bus belonging to a popular transport company with the baby when a co-passenger observed that the mother could not breastfeed the baby despite its cry for food in the course of the journey.
“The good Samaritan put a call through to Anambra Police on its control room hotline in Awka which then relayed the information to the police at Bridgehead in Onitsha.
“The police laid in wait for the luxury bus described and intercepted it in the evening. The couple and the baby were identified and brought down for questioning.
“They confessed to buying the child from its mother in Ajah, Lagos for the sum of N30,000.”
He continued by saying that the state’s commissioner of police, CP Aderemi Adeoye, praised police officers for their diligence and alertness and thanked the civic-minded individual for providing the information that resulted in the child’s rescue.
“The CP has directed that the couple be handed to the National Agency for Prohibition in Trafficking of Persons for further investigation and prosecution.
“Meanwhile the baby has been handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs for care by the state government,” the statement added.
