A 52-year old woman, Margaret Ajemogu, who faked two pregnancies and secretly bought four stolen babies in order to deceive her husband that she can conceive after 20 years of marriage has been arrested and detained by the Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti
An authoritative source revealed that the incident happened at Onawale Street, off Afiz Lawal Street, Alagbado area of Lagos, where Mrs. Margaret resides with her husband, Engineer Johnson.
It was gathered that the four stolen children have been rescued and taken into protective custody at the Lagos State Government facility as efforts are being made to locate their parents.
Mrs. Margaret, who hails from Akwa Ibom State was learned to have got married to Johnson about 20 years ago and had a daughter, who is now 17.
Having stayed several years in the marriage and was unable to bear another child, she was worried not to lose her marriage if she did not bear any other child for Engr Johnson.
The woman, Mrs. Margaret, reportedly arranged with one Mrs. Okocha, now at large, who claimed to be running a fertility herbal home in the Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos and a suspected known human trafficker, Mrs. Nneka, on how to fake pregnancy, buy stolen babies and deceive her husband.
In 2015, Margaret introduced her husband, Johnson to Mrs. Okocha as a traditional herbal home doctor, who deals only with fertility problems on women in the Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos. Mrs. Okocha promised the man, Johnson, that she will treat his wife, Margret and she will become pregnant and bear him a child. Engr. Johnson believed her and parted with over N9m.
After some time, Johnson was informed that his wife, Margaret was pregnant and he would not sleep with her again until after the birth of the child.
According to Johnson, he believed them because he saw the big stomach of his wife resembling that of a pregnant woman. Later, Mrs. Margret informed her husband, Johnson, that she had delivered twins – a boy and a girl and the babies were named.
However, the whole scam got exposed when the children began to grow and started behaving strangely. And there was no single sign of resemblance of the children to either their father, Johnson, or mother, Margaret, which gave rise to suspicion and prompted Johnson to take the children for a DNA test to ascertain both paternity and maternity of the children.
The result of the DNA test showed that there was no single link between the children and their parents despite the hope Margret had given the husband, Johnson, that they were the real biological parents of the children.
Traumatized by the result of the DNA test, Engr. Johnson wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, against his wife to explain how she got those children and attached the DNA test result for both of them.
Mrs. Margret was arrested and detained at the SCID, Panti, for interrogation and she made shocking revelations to the Police.
She revealed that she was never pregnant rather she was deceived and given drugs that made her stomach big like that of a pregnant woman on those two occasions by Mrs. Okocha and then Mrs. Nneka facilitated and brought those children from Eastern and Northern Nigeria, who were reasonably suspected to have been stolen.
There was a twist in the matter, however, when Mrs. Margaret attempted to rope in her husband and told the Police that Engr. Johnson brought the money, which they used for the purchase of the children, and that the Police should charge both of them to Court for the alleged crime.
The Police Legal Department at SCID, Panti, was said to have insisted that the man, Johnson, must be charged before the Court alongside Mrs. Margaret because it was the money he brought that was used to buy those children.
However, Johnson insisted that he knew nothing about the purchase of the stolen children; he was made to understand that he was the person that impregnated the wife and she was delivered of those children, which later turned out to be a scam.
The matter has been referred to the DPP for advice, while the Police were said to be making efforts to see if the parents of those stolen children could be contacted because of the trauma the children are passing through.
