But for the ceaseless crying of a four-month-old baby yesterday, three children may have ended up in a kidnappers’ den.
The cry of the baby, carried by Eno, the suspected kidnapper, who was accompanied by a teenager, inside an Iddo, Lagos-bound Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) vehicle, attracted other passengers, the Nation reports.
With the woman and the teenager, a girl, were two other children—Happiness Effiong (four) and her sister, Patience (two). They claimed that all three were Eno’s children.
Worried by the baby’s cry, other women inside the bus asked Eno to breastfeed her.
But she refused. She was also unable to pet the baby to stop crying.
Suspecting her, the passengers were said to have alerted men of Iddo Police Station, Railway Terminus, who promptly arrested her and her accomplice.
At the police station, Eno again refused all entreaties to breastfeed the baby. Instead, she brought out a feeding bottle containing an orange-colour watery substance, which the baby refused to take.
Eno, who initially told the police that she lives at Iyana-Oba, Majidun in Ikorodu, later said she stays at Igando.
Asked for her husband’s phone number, she claimed she does not know it, adding that she does not have a phone.
The teenager, who she claimed to be her sister, was asked to use her own phone to call any of their family members to confirm Eno’s statement.
The unsatisfactory response from their supposed brother, who she called, prompted the police to detain them.
