A 47-year-old man, Moses Otimba, has been arrested by the Bayelsa State Police Command for allegedly killing a five-day-old baby boy he fathered with the younger sister of his pregnant wife.
South-South News reports that Otimba had impregnated the 18-year-old girl identified as Joy and after she gave birth to the baby boy, he allegedly murdered the child and buried it in a shallow grave near a river.
Otimba,
who hails from the Ogbogoro community in Yenagoa Local Government Area
of the state, was said to have committed the act in connivance with the
teenager in order to hide the paternity of the infant.
Joy,
according to family sources, had refused to disclose the identity of
the man who got her pregnant despite pressure from her family,
throughout the period she was pregnant till she put to bed.
Confirming the arrest of the suspects, the State Commissioner of Police, CP Asuquo Amba, said policemen from the Yenagoa Police Division arrested them on August 15, 2017, after the incident was reported.
“Mr. Moses Otimba, male, 47, impregnated one Joy Matthew, 18, a younger sister to his wife, Glory.
The pregnant Joy was delivered of the baby by a traditional birth attendant at Amarata, Yenagoa, on May 8, 2017.
On
May 13, 2017, Moses, Joy and the baby left the birth attendant and went
across the Swali Bridge where Moses took the baby from his mother, went
down the shore, suffocated the baby and buried the body in a shallow
grave.
The police visited the
scene of the incident. By the time they got to the scene, the current
of the river had washed away the child’s body.
The
main suspect, Moses Otimba, has confessed to the crime and Joy has also
confessed her alleged involvement in the murder of the baby. The
investigation is ongoing."
While being interviewed by journalists, Otimba confessed that he killed the baby with the consent of Joy.
“I killed the baby boy because I was afraid. I did not really know how to face my wife and my mother-in-law.
I
am really sorry. I took the baby to the bush in my community and
closed his nose until he died. When I was carrying out the act, I was
weeping and crying but I had no choice.
When
I got to the site, he was five days old then. I closed his nose and
within some seconds, he stopped breathing. After that, I started
regretting.
The mother of the
baby agreed that we should kill him. I told Joy that I did not know how
to tell my wife about the development. On that day, she was carrying
the baby. She gladly gave me the baby to do as I wished.
My
wife was not aware of all of this. But somehow, I did not know what
happened. I learned the baby’s mother told her mother who alerted the
police and we were arrested.”
CP Amba has promised that the suspects would be arraigned in court as soon as investigations are concluded.
