Building where Orikara formerly operated
The sight that confronted a team of policemen that raided the building located on Brass Street, Aba, Abia State, could only conjure a picture of the dark days of slavery.For all of four years, since opening the facility in 2007.
One Dr Hyacinth Orikara had carried on the illegal business of procuring and selling babies to childless couples and, possibly, ritualists.
But nemesis caught up with him on May 28, 2011. About 6am on this fateful day, policemen led by the Aba Area Commander, Mr Rabiu Dayi, raided his Cross Foundation Investment ‘Heda Clinic’ and arrested him along with 32 pregnant girls aged between 18 and 22.
He had been patiently waiting to ‘harvest’ their babies – a profitable practice he started in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, before relocating to Aba after a botched prosecution following an earlier trial for similar crime.
Evidently, Orikara had repudiated the Hippocratic Oath he swore to before being accepted into medical practice and then turned his attention, wholesale, to the more lucrative ‘business’ of trafficking in babies. His modus operandi is to supposedly ‘care for’ pregnant schoolgirls that were obviously not eager to keep and nurture the babies they were carrying as they would become encumbrances to their go-go lifestyle.
Orikara’s arrest was the result of a tip-off to the police that the Brass Street Merchant of Babies was engaged in illegal child trading in his clinic. Interestingly, both the pregnant girls and some staff of the clinic have made confessions linking the medical doctor with the crime of child trafficking and operating an illegal clinic.
Return to illegal business
Back in 2007, Orikara had been arrested for a similar crime alongside one Mrs Ayodele Okeke at 10 Woji Street, Port Harcourt in Rivers State. Then his business was recommending pregnant girls to Ayodele. The police charged Orikara to court for child trafficking and running an illegal clinic. But the police did not have a solid case against him and consequently lost the matter in court. The medical doctor was set free and he returned to continue his illegal business.
Now that the bubble has burst again, Orikara is cooling his heels in police cell. The Abia Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Geoffrey Ogbonna, who confirmed the development, indicated that Orikara’s statement strongly supported the belief of the police that he was involved in child trafficking even though he claimed he only cared for the girls until they delivered the babies, after which he handed them over to Welfare Office in Aba for adoption by interested members of the public. But the Welfare Office roundly rejected his claim. A female staff told Sunday Sun in confidence that there was no record that Orikara had any dealings with the office concerning child adoption or on any other related issue for that matter.
However, one of the arrested pregnant ladies revealed that male babies were sold for N30,000 while females went for a paltry N20,000. Investigation further revealed that the mothers do not see their babies. It was also found out that individuals who introduce the pregnant girls to the clinic were rewarded with N5,000 each. At the clinic, the pregnant girls were cramped into unkempt rooms with dilapidated facilities. Each of them got N5,000 weekly for their upkeep. Upon giving birth, they were paid off about N30,000 for baby boys and N20,000 for girls while the doctor smiled to the banks after selling male babies for N400,000 and girls at N350,000.
More troubling is the fact that the poor facilities at the hospital and lack of qualified personnel resulted in the death of no fewer than seven pregnant ladies weekly. In the commercial centre of Aba, Orikara is not the only person profiting from child trafficking. Recently, the Abia State Police Command smashed another syndicate of child traffickers. While parading one of the suspects before newsmen, the Commissioner of Police, Bala Hassan, disclosed that the syndicate comprises seven persons - two males and five females.
Yet another man, one Samson Ugwo (29), who claims to be a minister of God, was also nabbed in the business of selling babies between N10,000 and N20,000. The pathetic angle to the story is that the Ugwo was said to have sold his own son for N150,000 to one Amos Ahamefula, who later changed the boy’s name. The police in Aba are however bracing up to the child trafficking challenge. Penultimate week, men of the Ndiegoro police division arrested one Sunday Okereke for selling his own son.
A police source also disclosed that 75-year-old Mrs Benedicta Ndubuisi was engaged in the illegal business of ‘harbouring and caring’ for pregnant girls, whose babies she later gave out for illegal adoption.
But the bubble burst when a transaction went awry. A woman, one Chizoba Nwaeze, reportedly linked the old ‘baby-trader’ with her childless sister. Sunday Sun learnt that Nwaeze and her sister contacted Ndubuisi, who promised to give the childless woman a set of twins.
But after collecting a deposit of N49,000, she failed to deliver as agreed and trouble ensued between the ‘buyer’ and the ‘seller.’ One of Mrs Ndubuisi’s neighbours, Sunday Okereke, who reportedly knew the woman was into child trafficking, sought to know what the problem was. After hearing that his neighbour could not give the babies as agreed to the ladies and wanting to pacify them, he was said to have given out his three-year-old son, Chigaemezu Okereke, to Chizoba to sell to her sister in Port Harcourt at the cost of N150,000. Chizoba sold the boy for N165,000 but came back and gave the man N145,000, claiming it was the amount he was sold. Now all of them are cooling their heels in police net.
There was also another case involving one Ijeoma Uduma, 24, of No. 13 Ibadan Street, Aba. Ijeoma, who had two children with two different men, got pregnant again for yet another man, who then abandoned her. On a fateful day when she went to buy drugs from a patent medicine seller, Mrs. Melody Nwankwo, 38, who claimed to be a nurse,
Ijeoma narrated her ordeal to the woman.
Mrs Nwankwo was said to have informed her husband, Chinedu, who in turn consulted one Benjamin Ubonu (50), a pastor, who had reportedly been contemplating buying a baby. Thereafter a deal was struck. Few days to Ijeoma’s delivery, the pastor through Chinedu enquired from the girl how much she was going to sell the baby when born. The parties settled for N100,000 and the pastor made an upfront payment.
However, the unexpected happened. On April 11, Ijeoma delivered a set of twins, which were handed over to the pastor. But the police were alerted and all those involved in the illegal deal were arrested.
The question now bothering most people is whether the activities of the child traffickers conformed with provisions of the Eastern Nigeria Child Adoption Law No. 12 of 1986?
Speaking on the worrisome development, medical director of Okwuonu Memorial Hospital, Aba, Dr. C. C. Okwuonu, who also runs a social home, dismisses their activities as illegal, explaining that babies should not be sold but adopted by qualified couples. According to him, legal adoption only attract a fee of N25,000.
He stated that when someone intends to adopt a baby, the applicant would be required to present age declaration, evidence of medical fitness, two passport photographs, a marriage certificate as well as the birth certificate of the baby to be adopted.
“You see, people like to cut corners by avoiding the due process. Any foster parent who wants to adopt a baby comes to the Social Welfare Unit of a local government area for a temporary adoption paper, which would be made permanent at the end of one year. It is only when the permanent papers are issued that the foster parents can claim the baby as theirs. The basis of this process is to ascertain whether the would-be-foster parents are able to support the foster child. “Also, no mother would be admitted into a social home without the consent of her parents. Anything short of the above processes is illegal,” Okwuonu stated.
He added that the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria should withdraw the certificates of medical practitioners found guilty of this practice. “To save the face of the medical profession, medical practitioners who are found wanting in this area should be shown the way out by withdrawing their certificates,” Okwuonu added. For Dr. Charles Chinekezi, a human rights activist, the practice is almost becoming modern-day slave trade. “The most annoying thing is that sometimes these babies are sold to ritualists who use them for diabolical purposes,” he said.
From OKEY SAMPSON, Aba
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