The Ekiti State Police Command has found and recovered the one-day-old baby boy who was reportedly stolen at Oke-Iyimi Health Centre, Ado-Ekiti, on Monday.
The state’s Commissioner of Police, Joseph Aribo, disclosed this while addressing journalists on Wednesday.
Aribo said the command received a distress call about the missing baby on Monday and swiftly sprang into action, adding that the culprit left a cotton wool with a receipt in the hospital and was tracked to a popular supermarket where she was finally caught through their CCTV.
The culprit, Deborah Ayeni, 34, said she decided to carry out the dastardly act in order to prevent being abandoned by her fiancé after losing her pregnancy in March, 2025.
Deborah, who confessed to wrapping clothes around her belly to fake pregnancy, said her fiancé had travelled to the United Kingdom in 2024 after their introduction and has been all alone since then.
She added that after she lost her pregnancy, she feared to being abandoned if she had informed her fiancé, hence her quest and desperation to get a baby to cover up the disappointment.
Her words, “I stole the baby because I needed it. When I got to the hospital, I met them there, we were joking with the baby and I left with it after a while.
“I was pregnant last year before my husband travelled to UK but I had miscarriage in March this year but I didn’t tell me husband that I lost the pregnancy.
“I’m not legally married yet, but I did my introduction last year. I was thinking if I tell my husband that I lost my pregnancy, maybe he would leave me. This is my first time stealing a baby.
“I was not on admission when I went there, I pretended to be pregnant by packing clothes in my stomach.
“I was playing with the mother on Sunday morning, we started playing because I understood Hausa language. Her husband told me to help him stay with the kid while he went out to get something. I stole the Baby around 4am and I saw Bike ten minutes thereafter.”
The father of the child, Mustapha Aliyu, 29, said he didn’t expect such dastardly act to emanate from Deborah, whom he described as someone who was very jovial with him the day her wife delivered the baby boy.
Aliyu said though he didn’t know her but she was also in the hospital on Sunday on a claim to come for delivery, only to carry out the operation at the time he entrusted her with supervision.
He mentioned that she had left the health centre at a time to another hospital on Sunday, insinuating that she might have gone there to scout before finally carrying out the operation at Oke-Iyimi Health centre.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police has handed the baby over to the parents while the culprit remains in their custody.
