Barely one week after a woman severed her stepson's penis, another woman has been arrested for trying to kill a two-hour old baby boy in Kopa village in Bosso Local Government Area of Niger State. The 25-year-old suspect, Bilkisu Adamu Isah, said to be the second wife to the father of the little baby, was alleged to have committed the offence on Wednesday at about 7am.
The Sunday Telegraph learnt that at about 5am on the fateful morning the mother of the child, Suwebatu Kohageuto, who is also the senior wife, had been delivered of the baby boy. And barely two hours after the birth of the child, the suspect, Bilkisu Adamu Isah, was allegedly left alone to look after the new born baby in order to allow Suwebatu have her bath few hours after the umbilical cord of the baby had been separated from him.
An insider police source at the homicide section of the Niger State Criminals Investigation, Intelligent Department (SCIID) Minna said that no sooner that the suspect observed that the senior wife had started to bath that she went into her own room in the house, brought out a bottle of a locally made insecticide popularly called 'Otapiapia' and poured some into the mouth of the little child.
The source, who pleaded anonymity, said as soon as the suspect had poured the substance into the mouth of the boy that he began to foam and cried out hysterically, obviously in pain.
Surprisingly, the same suspect, who allegedly committed the act, was also said to have been the one that raised the alarm which attracted other members of the family, including the mother of the child. It was learnt that the family members were shocked at the strange occurrence and promptly made a distress call to the grandfather of the child, one Alhaji Mohammed Audu to come. And on arriving at the scene, the old man was said to have put his nose near the mouth of the boy and subsequently told the bewildered family members that he suspected that the boy might have been poisoned with 'Otapiapia' because that was the odour he perceived.
The Sunday Telegraph further learnt that in the midst of the confusion that engulfed the family as the boy was taken to the hospital, the suspect was said to have quietly escaped from the scene and ran to her father's house in a nearby village, Gbedahan, in the same Bosso Local Government.
And on her arrival at her family house, she had confessed to her father that she poisoned her 2-hour old stepson with a view to killing him. However, her disappearance raised suspicion with her husband's family because she did not tell anyone before she left. A delegation was sent to the suspect's village where she allegedly confessed to her in-laws that she was responsible for the dastardly act, which she carried out due to her inability to give birth to a male child for her husband.
The 25-year-old suspect, and a mother of two female children, was promptly handed to the Niger State Police Command headquarters and where upon investigation, she confessed to the crime. Meanwhile, the little boy is said to be responding to treatment at the General Hospital Minna.
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