The Ogun state police have arrested a 28-year-old woman, Anuoluwapo
Joshua, for allegedly stealing a three-year-old girl at the Redemption
Camp off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The Nation reports that Joshua was
arrested on December 29th after Akamaka Francis was seen during the
church’s end of year children’s party. Joshua allegedly stole the
child from her mother in July at the church’s monthly Holy Ghost
Congress.
According to the police, the mother had left the little girl and went
to the church’s new auditorium to pack their belongings. When she
returned, she couldn’t find her child. She immediately alerted the
church’s security.
”All efforts to find the child failed. The suspect ran out of luck
on Friday December 29th when the child was sighted inside the youth
centre at the Redemption Camp during the children’s end of year
party. On receiving the information, the DPO, Redeemed Division, Olaiya
Martins, a Superintendent of Police (SP), led detectives to the centre
where they waited until the end of the programme.
The suspect came out
to pick the child and was promptly arrested. She confessed to the crime.
She admitted that she lured the child out of her parents’ sight and
took her to Ofada, where she has been caring for her.
Investigation
further revealed that the suspect had earlier got pregnant for somebody
in Lagos but travelled to the North where she claimed she was delivered
of a baby girl. But when she came back from the North, she didn’t come
with the baby. This made the man who impregnated her to pressure her to
bring his child for him. She later informed her relatives that she was
going to Nasarawa State to bring the child but went to Redemption Camp,
stayed for some days before stealing the child. She presented her to her
relatives as her daughter.
“The Commissioner of Police (CP), Ahmed
Iliyasu, has ordered the immediate transfer of the suspect to the
Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further
investigation and prosecution,” said Abimbola Oyeyemi, the command’s
spokesman.