Culled frm Thisday
•Suspected killers of three-year-old remanded
Hammed Shittu in Ilorin
More and more bizarre acts are happening in Kwara State,
some of them stranger than fiction. Or how does one explain
that a woman on hearing that her friend was delivered of a
new born baby and went to share in her joy only to steal the
baby and abscond with it? The incident has set tongues
wagging in Oke-Ola area of Oro in Irepodun Local Government
Area of Kwara State, where the visiting friend stole the nine-
month-old baby, Funke Alaba.
Thankfully, the baby was found
alive in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, six days after.
Also in Kwara State, two suspects believed to have murdered
a three-year-old girl for ritual, were yesterday remanded in
prison custody, after their bail application was turned down
by Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed of Ilorin Magistrates’ Court.
Alaba was said to have been kidnapped by her mother’s friend,
simply identified as Shade, when she visited her friend in Oro
recently.
THISDAY gathered that the mother of the baby, who was
excited by her friend’s visit, had decided to prepare her a
meal and while she was in the kitchen, Shade was alone in the
room with Baby Funke.
When the food was ready, Funke’s mum came out to serve her
guest; only to be confronted by an empty room as neither her
nine-month-old baby nor her friend was anywhere in sight.
Pronto, she raised the alarm. But it was too late, her friend
had disappeared with the baby.
Shade headed for Ilorin, a distance of about 25 kilometres
and went shopping for the baby at the Ilorin Market where
she bought some clothes before she took the baby to Ibadan.
At Ibadan,
Shade posed as the mother of the baby, narrating
how God graciously “visited” her with her own baby. Shade had
been out of Ibadan for two years, so her neighbours and
friends believed that whilst she was away, she was pregnant
and was delivered of the baby.
“Everybody was happy with her and her new baby until she
started feeling a little uncomfortable and fidgety, and then
she suddenly decided to abandon the baby and ran away to an
unknown destination,” a source said.
Briefing journalists on the incident yesterday, the state
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Chinweke Asadu, said the case was
reported at the Oro Police Divisional Headquarters on
January 18 and was later transferred to the state CID.
According to him, "It was a case of a nine-month-old child
that was missing and on receiving the information, the state
CID moved to Ibadan. On getting there, around Oronyan area
of Ibadan, the nine-month-old baby girl was discovered and
her name is Funke Alaba while the suspect was nowhere to be
found.”
Asadu said the baby had been recovered and was released to
her parents yesterday.
Mr. Amos Alaba, the father of the baby, thanked God and the
state police command for making it possible to recover the
baby.
Meanwhile, two persons suspected to have been involved in the
murder of a three-year-old girl in Ilorin have been arraigned
before an Ilorin Magistrates’ Court.
The accused, Abdulrasheed Usman and Jamiu Aliu, were
ordered remanded at the Federal Medium Security Prison,
Mandala, Ilorin.
They were alleged to have cut off the head of the girl, Aliya
Usman of Ile Onigboro, Ilorin on January 7, and deposited the
body in a soak-away pit, while most of her vital parts and
organs were cut off.
The accused were arrested after a report by the father of
the deceased, Tajudeen Usman, that his daughter was
discovered missing while she was playing at the back of his
house.
According to him, on January 8 at about 5am, he found the
girl’s corpse badly mutilated at the backyard inside the soak-
away pit adjacent to the window of Abdulrasheed (first
accused), who is a brother to the father of the deceased.
The accused were arraigned on a two-count charge of criminal
conspiracy and culpable homicide, contrary to Sections 97 and
221 of Penal Code Law.
The police prosecutor, Sergeant Nasiru Yusuf, who had
informed the court that investigation was yet to be
completed, objected to the bail of the accused, arguing that
the offence was capital in nature and not bailable. He urged
the court to remand them in prison custody pending the
outcome of investigation.
The defence counsel, Mr. Ibrahim Shuaib, who prayed the
court to admit the accused to bail pending the conclusion of
the investigation, argued that the 1999 Constitution still
presumes an accused innocent until proven guilty.
Delivering his ruling, Magistrate Mohammed stated that the
gravity of the offence was the highest known to law, and so he
refused to grant them bail. Rather, he ordered that the
accused be remanded at the Federal Medium Security Prison,
Ilorin.
The case was adjourned till February 12 for further mention.
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