Perm Sec, Nurse Arrested Over Child Trafficking

A Serving Permanent Secre­tary in the Bayelsa State Civil Service (names withheld) and a nurse in a private hospital located in Igbogene, Yenagoa have are now in police net over an alleged attempt to buy a new born baby.The incident is coming barely two weeks after police detectives from Akenfa police station arrested two women for selling a newborn baby for N300, 000.
Investigations revealed that the senior civil servant and the nurse were arrested by a special team of anti-Vice Squad of the State Police Command over alleged attempts to buy a newborn baby for N200, 000.
Checks indicated that the Senior civil servant who is also a practicing Medical Doctor is the owner of the hospital in which the baby was delivered.
Saturday Sun learnt that the mother of the baby, 24 year-old Nnena Lawrence from Ebonyi state lodged the complaint at the police station leading to the arrest of the suspects.
According to findings, Miss Lawrence had gone to the hospital in the third trimester of her pregnancy and attempted to secure the service of the Doctor to carry out an abortion.
The Doctor was said to have refused due to the risk and instead allegedly offered to buy the baby if delivered with an offer of N200,000 for a female baby and the sum of N250,000 if it is boy.
Miss Lawrence was said to have been offered N27, 000 as deposit payment for feeding by the suspects to demonstrate their seriousness. However the agreement got twisted when after being delivered of a baby boy, Miss Lawrence had a change of mind on the deal and when the hospital refused to discharge her with the baby, she reportedly filed a complaint at the Igbogene Division of the Police.
A source at the hospital who pleaded for anonymity exonerated the suspects and the management of the Hospital from the baby selling saga.
According to him, the senior civil servant was only trying to help the mother of the baby by taking the baby to the Welfare Department of the State.
The Spokesman of the State Police Command, Asinim Butswat who confirmed the development said investigation was ongoing to verify the claims of the mother of the newly born baby.