Woman Abandons Three-Month -Old Baby in Church, Cites Hardship
By Wisdom Patrick, Lagos
Policemen attached to Kola Divisional Headquarters, Lagos State Police Command, have arrested one Uju Okorie, who allegedly abandoned her three-month-old baby girl at the Alakuko branch of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, MFM, last Sunday.
The Regional Overseer and presiding Pastor of the Church, Mrs. Funmilola Abraham, who also confirmed the development added that the woman had earlier told her that she does not have the means to take care of the baby.
Pastor Funmilola Abraham stated that the woman who stayed at Alakuko gave her name to the Police as Uju. “She also claimed to have taken the baby to the father who rejected her. So we reported the development to the Police.”
According to her, the woman was in the Church last Sunday with her baby. “After packing her belongings and taking them to a woman at Alakuko Bus Stop for safe-keeping, she came to the church to dump the baby, after which she would run away.
“She handed over her child to another woman in the Church, telling her that she was pressed and needed to go and ease herself but instead bolted abandoning the baby with the woman.”
It was gathered that when the woman was trying to sell the left -over of her baby’s diapers, the would-be buyer asked her why she wanted to sell the diapers. ” She told the woman that she wanted to use the money to run away. She also told the buyer that she had gone to a church to dump her baby because she cannot take care of her”.
Sources confirmed that it was the diaper buyer that persuaded the run-away mother to go back to the Church and show herself to the Pastor, “so that you would not put the Church in Police trouble, that was how she came back and was arrested and handed over to the Church authority,” said Pastor Funmi Abraham.
A top Police officer at Kola Police Division who also confirmed that the woman was in their custody, added that Police have given the custody of the baby temporarily to the Church. “We cannot give the child back to the mother because she is capable of killing the innocent child, so we pleaded with the church to take custody of the child and all necessary documents to that effect would be forwarded to them before the end of the week.”
Meanwhile, the child whom the mother said her name was Miracle is now answering a different name, given to her by the Church. Her new name is Testimonies D.K. Odukoya, obviously named after Dr. Odukoya, the General Overseer worldwide of MFM.