Women Abduct 9-Year Old Girl,Sell Her For N650,000 In Lagos

The Lagos State Police Command has
arrested four women for allegedly
abducting and selling a nine-year-old
girl, identified simply as Blessing, for
N650,000.
The women are Fausat Ogidan, Abibat
Oresanya, Bola Obajuruwa and Idiyat
Abass.
According to Punch, Ogidan, who was
with the nine-year-old girl, and
collected the sum on behalf of others,
was arrested in the Gbagada area of
Lagos.The 51-year-old woman, who is
married with four children, had
arranged to sell the girl and on that
Sunday.The girl was given to Ogidan by
Obajuruwa, commonly known as Iya
Alaje, who lives in the Suberu Street,
Alakuko area of Lagos.
Iya Alaje also confessed that she had
told Ogidan to sell the girl for N350,000
before she was caught.
She said,
“I used to sell herbs in the Agege
Market. I told Fausat (Ogidan) to
sell the girl forN350,000, but Fausat
added N300,000 as her own profit.
The girl was sold to me by Idiyat
(Abass) and her elder sister,
Abibat.“I bought her from them for
N130,000. They said they were
going to give the money to the
girl’s mother who wanted to get rid
of her because of poverty.”
Obajuruwa, when arrested, had led the
police to Abass and Oresanya, who got
the girl from her parents and connived
to sell her.
Our correspondent further learnt that
Abass, a 48-year-old woman, who was
living in the Salau Dogo Street, Ibafo
area of Ogun State, had obtained the
girl from her mother, who the police
said was still at large.
It was gathered that Oresanya claimed
that Blessing’s mother had wanted to
dispose of her and use the money
obtained to take care of her other
children.However, during
interrogation, Blessing, who said her
real name was Yetunde, told the police
that she was kidnapped from their
residence in Ibadan.
A relative, who identified herself simply
as Funmi, claimed that Obajuruwa gave
out Blessing, who was her grandchild,
to a customer to assist in home chores.
She said,
“There are about seven to eight
children in this house. They are all
Iya Alaje’s grandchildren. So, it
happened that when one of her
customers put to bed recently. She
pleaded with mama to give her
someone to assist her. Iya Alaje
took Blessing, her seven-year-old
granddaughter, to be staying with
her. The second day, Blessing ran
away from that house, and told the
people who saw her that she had
been kidnapped by the customer.
“That was why the police arrested
mama and the customer, saying
they kidnapped the girl.”
Our correspondent learnt that
investigations were ongoing at the SARS
on the matter.