A 24-year old has revealed how the police caught her husband after he sold their child in Akwa- Ibom state.
In an exclusive interview, she revealed how the father of her kids sold their 2-year old for N150,000.
Recently, you alerted the police that your husband sold your two-year-old son, Elisha. How did you get to know?
It
all happened on Monday, July 24. I was lying down on the bed in our
apartment when the father of my children came into the house and woke me
up. He immediately requested that I go to my mother’s place at
Eta-Agbor Road in Calabar but I told him that I did not have transport
fare and that I was also hungry. He went out and came back with N50
which he probably borrowed from someone. He told me to use it as
transport fare to my mother’s place. I preferred to use the money to buy
garri because I was very hungry. He said he wanted me go to my mother’s
place because he was travelling to Akwa Ibom State. I asked if he was
coming back that day and he said yes. At that point, our two-year-old
boy, Elisha, was within the compound. I had asked Elisha not to go
outside because, just like me, he was hungry. After our discussion, I
went to take my bath.
When did you notice that your son was no longer in the compound?
I
initially did not know his father had taken the boy outside the
compound. It was another little child in the compound that told me that
Elijah’s father asked him to go outside the compound to play. The boy
said that Elisha ran outside and had not returned. Then, I became
curious and started shouting Elisha’s name around and outside the
compound. My husband’s brother, living in the compound, asked what the
problem was and I said I had not seen Elisha. Other tenants too asked
the same question and I responded the same way.
Did you ask him before he left the house where he was going to in Akwa Ibom State?
He
did not tell me exactly where he was going to in Akwa Ibom State. He
only told me he was going to look for work there. But when I searched
around and could not find Elisha, I immediately called him, asking if
Elisha was with him. He said no. In fact, he said Elisha was playing
outside the compound when he left the house. I told him that his brother
had been outside and that we didn’t see Elisha. We immediately began
the search for Elisha in neighbouring streets but we didn’t see him. The
brother and I went as far as St. Bernard’s School in Calabar-South
where he (husband) always sat with friends to drink, but the people
around said they did not see him. I screamed on the phone while talking
with Elijah’s father about the boy’s whereabouts. For the second time,
he denied. Even his brother also called him. The brother’s wife called
him but he continued denying. I shouted, cried and ran all the way to my
mother’s place to report the matter to her. My mother pleaded with me
not to cry. She said that maybe he didn’t want me to bring the child to
her place. My mother assured me that he would bring the child back,
although I did not believe.
Why didn’t you believe her?
My
inner mind kept revealing to me that the man went to sell the child.
My mother warned me not to say that again. That Monday night, at about
7pm, I called him again after borrowing N100 from somebody to recharge
my phone. I told him I still had not seen my child. He shouted on me on
the phone, saying I was speaking nonsense. He kept denying my
accusation.
Did he return from Akwa Ibom State that day?
No,
he did not. On Tuesday, around 6am, I woke up, took my bath and called
him again. He said he was on his way back to Calabar. I called him
again and he told me that he was on his way and that he didn’t
understand what I was talking about. I kept crying until one of our
neighbours, Ekaete, advised that I get something like an empty container
that I could hit with stick to announce that my child was missing. She
said I should announce that if anybody saw the child, he or she should
take him to the police station. But I told her that I don’t have any
money to give to the police. However, after she persisted, I took my
second son, who is two months old, with me and strapped him on my back. I
went to Uwanse Police Station to report that my child was missing. At
the end of the day, I exchanged numbers with the policewoman who asked
me to go but advised that I alert them when I see him. They assured me
that if I didn’t have money to come; they would come and arrest the
father of my children. That Tuesday, I called him. I lied to him that my
small child and I (the younger one who is less than two months), were
hungry and there was nothing for us to eat. He told me he was coming
and switched off his phone. Later that Tuesday at about 5pm, he
switched on the phone again. I asked why he switched off his phone. I
asked why he didn’t want to tell me the whereabouts of my child and he
said I was talking nonsense that he didn’t carry my child. I ended the
call and started crying. People came around and asked me to keep quiet.
I told them that the small child could not have crossed the gutter
close to the house to go anywhere to play.
How did you eventually know that he took the child away?
It
was when he came back from Akwa Ibom that the police trailed and
arrested him. I was devastated when I got to know that he sold Elisha. I
still hope to see my son.
What was he doing before the incident?
He was a mason. I was working with somebody as a house help and making pop corn for another person.
What can you say about his character?
He
drank a lot and when he returned home, he quarrelled with me.
Sometimes, he beat me up. He once beat me with a machete. Sometime last
year, when my mother visited us, he pursued her with machete and my
mother ran away. She left the house and since that time, she never came
back to visit us again.
How did you meet him?
I met him at
Akpabuyo LGA of Cross River State in 2014 but I cannot remember the
month now. I went to Akpabuyo to see my aunty and on my way back, we met
inside the taxi that I boarded. He said he wanted to marry me. After a
week, he called my number and said I should come and visit him where he
stayed.
When I got there, he took me to his former compound
where he was living before he packed to No. 8, Amika Utuk Lane in
Calabar-South. It was there that I became pregnant for him. I stayed
with him until I was delivered of the boy (Elisha) on July 4, 2015.
Are you legally married to him?
He
never paid my bride price and my mother had always quarrelled with me
on that. She asked me to leave the man’s house because she doesn’t like
him. But I told my mother that I loved him.
Was he married before you moved in with him?
I
did not know that he was married. It was after I delivered Elisha that
his wife came to the house because she was staying in Uyo. When she
came, she started quarrelling with him and asked if he was not ashamed
of getting married to a small girl (me) who could be his child. She
asked him who would take care of her four children that he left for her.
The woman threatened that there would be trouble if he did not send
money to her to take care of the children in Akwa Ibom State. Since that
time, the man has been sending money to her. The second child from the
woman later came to live with us. But after this incident, the mother
came and took the child away, obviously out of fear that her child could
be sold like mine.
