A 25-year-old man, Abubakar Ibrahim, is currently being detained by the police in Taraba State for allegedly killing his two-months-old baby because he did not want to accept it because it was born out of wedlock by his lover.
The incident which happened at Unguwan Yandan in Jalingo, the state capital, according to information, occurred after Ibrahim failed to take care of the baby and the woman who delivered the child for him out of wedlock.
It was learnt that the suspect and the child’s mother, Karshe Harmuel, also 25, were living together as lovers before she got pregnant but when she was close to her Expected Day of Delivery (EDD), she left him to live with her uncle.
After she gave birth to a baby boy, Harmuel’s family members said Ibrahim ended the relationship and left her to take care of the baby.
The mother narrated that she had gone to meet Ibrahim on the fateful day to demand for money to buy soap and baby lotion and in the heat of anger, she left the baby behind, not knowing that he had a sinister motive in his mind.
“When I met him in the room, I asked him why he abandoned us. I told him since he decided to jilt me, he had to take care of his son. As I realised that he was not willing to listen to me, I left the baby with him and returned home.
A few minutes after I went back to pick my baby, I saw the man choking the neck of the baby.”
Harmuel’s uncle’s wife, Cecilia Hosea, said she urged Karshe to go back and pick her child.
“I asked Karshe to go back and pick the baby. When she brought back the baby, I collected the child. I then saw white fluid coming out from his month. I noticed that the baby had died. Karshe did not know that she was carrying a dead baby.”
Her uncle, John Hosea, who took care of her and the child, said he travelled to the village when the incident happened.
I was in the village when the incident happened. If I were at home when Karshe decided to take the baby to the man, I would not have allowed her.
I did not even know the man, I just saw him today at the police station and I told them at the station that the man was lucky I was in the village when he killed my grandchild, because I would have taken a revenge on him.
The man is very wicked, because since Karshe delivered, he only came to see her once, when he gave her N1,700 and told her that he named the child Ali.”
The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Joseph Kwaji, confirmed the incident, adding that the baby’s body had been taken to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Jalingo, for autopsy and that the suspect was in police custody.
