In a shocking confession, 24-year-old Blessing Okonkwo from Nigeria admitted to selling her three-year-old sibling, Friday Okonkwo, for N410,000 in Adamawa State due to financial hardship.
Okonkwo deceived her mother by claiming she would enroll the child in a school in Mubi, only to sell him to a trafficker, Efunaya Nabufe, who took the boy to Enugu.
Okonkwo used the proceeds to buy a grinding machine and gave N200,000 to her boyfriend for their traditional wedding.
The mother, Hauwa Lawan, from Rimirgo in the Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, became suspicious after not hearing from her son for a year.
The truth came out when Okonkwo’s father demanded to know the child’s whereabouts before approving her marriage.
After initially lying, Okonkwo admitted the truth under pressure, leading to the arrest of both her and Nabufe.
Adamawa State Police, led by Commissioner Dankombo Morris, confirmed the arrests and ongoing investigations. The suspects will face charges in accordance with Nigerian law.
She said, “She visited some time last year and lied to me that she would be taking her kid brother to enroll him in a school in the city, seeing there’s no good school in our village.
“Ever since she took away the boy I never heard from him, because any time I called to hear his voice she kept telling me one lie or the other for one year now. I got tired of asking and since I least suspected my own daughter could do this to me, I didn’t raise any alarm.
“As God will have it, she took a proposed husband home to her father in the southeast, the father demanded to know the whereabouts of his child first before attending to her marriage proposal.
“She then lied to him that the kid was dead, but the father consulted an oracle and was told the child was alive. He then threatened her and she opened up and told him the truth; that he was living with a woman in Enugu.
“When her father informed me, I reported the matter to the police who swiftly arrested her and her accomplice, the child trafficker, one Efunaya Nabufe.”
When contacted on Friday, the spokesperson for the police in Adamawa State, SP Suleiman Nguroje, confirmed the arrest of Okonkwo and Nabufe in connection to the crime.
He said, “On July 2, 2024, one Hauwa Lawan, a resident of Rimirgo in the Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, reported to the Adamawa State Police Command that her 3-year old son, Friday Okonkwo was stolen.
“Immediately the Commissioner of Police, Dankombo Morris, ordered the Divisional Police Officer in Mubi South, SP Aaron Ezra to commence investigation and as God would have it two suspects, Blessing Friday, 24 and Efunaya Nabufe, 35 were apprehended in connection to the crime.
“As it stands, the CP has directed that discreet investigation be conducted after which all suspects, including the two who are giving useful information would be charged to court according to the extant laws of the land,” Nguroje said.
