Akwa Ibom baby factory

Akwa Ibom State Police Commissioner, Mr. Umar Gwadabe, is barely a month old in the state but criminals appear to have started thinking of relocating. That, ironically, seems to be the mission of the new CP; to make the state extremely hot and uncomfortable for criminals and other mischief makers.  One of those, who have relocated, though on the run now, is an alleged fake medical doctor and proprietor of a baby factory at Ekpene Ukim,  in Uruan Local Government Area of the state, Mbaba (other names withheld) , whose compound was raided recently by the police.  

The operation yielded dividends in form of young girls, who had allegedly been lured with monetary incentives by Mbaba and his wife, to get pregnant and sell the babies to them for them to later resell and make profit. 

Gwadabe said three pregnant girls and four others  between the ages of 18 and 20 years “were rescued from the procreation factory and effort to arrest Mbaba and other members of the syndicate now at large is in top gear.” 

But he said the police were, however, lucky to have arrested Mrs. Mbaba, who later admitted to newsmen that she and the husband, said to be a fake medical doctor, had been engaging in the “deliver and sell” business and that the last baby they sold yielded a profit of N70,000 to the young mother. 

“We nurture young girls who appear not to have any help when they are pregnant till they give birth and we take the baby from them and pay them some money,” she said. The girl, Aniebet (other names withheld), who was equally arrested by the police, admitted to accepting the N70,000 the proprietors of the centre gave her after seizing her new born baby from her. She said she had actually gone there for abortion but was persuaded by Mrs. Mbaba to keep the pregnancy and rather make money from it; a piece of advice she heeded. She made the money but ended up in the police net. 

According to her, it was after she had collected the money and got home that her sister enquired of the pregnancy and demanded to see the baby. Her failure to produce the baby compelled the sister to report her to the police, who swooped on the factory. 

Gwadabe equally said within the short period that he had been in charge of the command, four persons, namely; Victor (other names withheld) from Oron, Bassey (other manes withheld) from Ibiono, Abasiama and Nse (other names withheld) were arrested for kidnapping all manner of people, including a four-year-old Rachael  Hezekiel Antai, who the police eventually rescued. 

“In spite of these achievements, our determined commitment to protecting lives and property in the command remains unflagging. We will ensure that Akwa Ibom State is made extremely hot and uncomfortable for all criminals and mischief makers,” the commissioner promised. He, however, appealed to members of the public to promptly report all suspicious and strange acts to the police and other security agencies, asserting that security is a collective responsibility. He also advised parents and guardians to monitor the movement of their children and wards to prevent them from being used as objects of criminal experiments by hoodlums. 

The new CP emphasised that the police would never engage in extra-judicial killing of suspected criminals because the law must be allowed to take its due course, just as he instructed his lieutenants to ensure that the police mobile unit dismantle the illegal roadblocks they still mount on some roads in Uyo. 

“On my assumption of office on March 6, 2012, I proceeded to align myself with the Inspector General of Police’s policing strategies, which are designed toward intelligence-led proactive and people-oriented policing. In this regard, I embarked on a diligent appraisal of the laudable and commendable security structures established by my predecessor, with the full logistic support of Chief Godswill Akpabio, the executive governor of Akwa Ibom State. 

“These worthy security strategies already on ground will be revitalised, strengthened and improved upon. Also, we have already started the repositioning and strengthening of our patrol systems toward the engineering of visible policing and complete domination of our security space.” 

The CP said his command had already taken a look at its intelligence and information gathering mechanism with the sole aim of streamlining and revitalising it. “In the light of the above, it is heart-warming to note that the command has, within four weeks of my assumption of duty, recorded many significant and impressive breakthroughs, leading to the smashing of various kidnap and armed robbery syndicates, rescue of kidnap victims and arrest of kingpins of robbery/kidnapping gangs.”