Abia State Police Command said it had intensified efforts to arrest a woman simply identified as Jane, for allegedly stealing a five-month-old baby from her mother in Ebem, Ohafia LGA, on Monday March 2.
Mr. Ene Okon, Abia police commissioner who confirmed the incident to our reporter, said that the event occurred on Monday, March 2, but was not reported to the police by the family until Saturday March 7. Okon said police quickly arrested a relative of Jane who lives in Ebem-Ohafia with whom the police planned to send them to Port Harcourt to search for Jane who lives in Port Harcourt.
However, he denied that the DPO of Ebem-Ohafia sent the suspect’s couple and parent to Port Harcourt to search for Jane without any letters or police accompanying them during the trip. The baby’s parents, Adam Imoh and Ijeoma Imoh, told our reporter that the baby was stolen from a store where Ms. Imoh worked with her sister in her sister’s hair salon on March 2.
Ms. Imoh said that Jane had visited the living room and seen her baby boy named Faith, she had started to rent Faith who she said was plump and beautiful. In her words, “She carried it and bought him cookies and then dropped it off before leaving the store. She came back later with baby tissue for him and it didn’t take long to wear it and after staying in the store for a while, she said she wanted to pick up her phone by charging in a store neighbor. Ms. Imoh said at the time that she unsuspectingly asked her daughter to accompany Jane to the store with baby Faith so that if the baby started to cry, she could bring him back. She said that after a few minutes she started to feel the baby missing and so she went to pick up Jane from the store where she said she was going.
Mrs. Imoh said that on her way, she saw her young daughter whom she sent to accompany Jane returning on top of a motorcycle driven by a motorcyclist. She continued, “I asked her where is Jane and she told me that Jane had entered a car with my baby.
At that point, I ran off to the shop Jane said she was going to collect her phone from and at the shop, I was told that Jane had left the shop some minutes ago” She said, “I became confused and we began running around to see if we can get her and later that evening, we went to the Ebem Ohafia Police station to report the matter.” Mr. Imoh, father of the baby said that he and his wife had gone to Port Harcourt in search of the woman after Ebem-Ohafia Police sent them to Port Harcourt without accompanying letter or a police operative. He said they had to report afresh at Eleme Police Station which mobilized for the search of Jane which as at when filing this report led to nothing except seeing Jane’s mother who said she does not know her whereabouts.