culled from Sun
What could make a mother willfully kill her
own baby? The suspect, Binta tells her story to Sunday Sun: “I was born
in Layin-Ruwa, Kafur Local Government Area of Katsina State. I got
married 11years ago and my husband, Inusa later forced me to divorce
him. I have only one son, Aminu for him.
“After the divorce, I decided to go into prostitution. The money
I got from prostitution is what I use to feed my father in the village.
My father had divorced my mother because my mother begged him to allow
me to return to my former husband, but my father rejected the advice. My father divorced my mother because of that.
“While
engaged in prostitution, I suddenly had an unwanted pregnancy, which I
did not terminate. I was able to conceal the pregnancy and successfully
had the baby boy delivered in my room.
“The ward head, Maiunguwa in
the village where I was doing prostitution had warned all prostitutes
not to have unwanted pregnancy, and that anyone who got pregnant must
relocate to any nearby village to deliver and care for the baby there.
“But because of the warning by village head, I was at a loss to what to do with the baby and my calling as a prostitute.
“My good friend, Hindatu Umar suggested that since we do not want to stop prostitution, we should kill the baby. We both went into the street and bought rat poison for N40 and used it to kill the baby.”
Asked
how the baby was actually killed, Binta said, “It was about midnight
that the act was carried out. I told my friend, Hindatu that I would not
want to witness the killing of my own child.
“Hindatu was the one who fed my baby with the poison. She forced him to drink the poison. When she wanted to do it, I went into the other room and took a drug, Valium 5 and slept off. I woke up to see that my baby was dead. We wrapped the dead body with clothes.”
News of the heinous crime soon filtered out and the partners in crime were apprehended.
Binta spoke further, “Unknown to us, the ward head had heard about the news that my baby
was killed. He quickly went to Danja Police Station, reported the
incident and we were arrested by the police.” In her own confession,
Hindatu Umar said, “I am a prostitute. My friend, Binta delivered a baby
boy and we have a law by the ward head in the village of Danja that he
doesn’t want any unwanted pregnancy and that any of us prostitutes who
gets pregnant should leave the village and deliver the baby in the next
village.
“We still enjoy our job as prostitutes and so, we both decided to kill the baby. I suggested
to her to kill the baby. We went into the street and bought local rat
killer and by midnight I gave the baby the poison and he drank the
poison and died instantly. I took the container and dropped it in the
toilet. Later the news spread and policemen from Danja Police Station
arrested us.”
