The Ekiti State Police Command has recovered a stolen one-day-old baby boy and arrested the suspect, Deborah Ayeni, 34, of Afao-Road, Ado-Ekiti.
This was revealed by the State’s Commissioner of Police, Joseph Aribo, while addressing journalists on Wednesday.
He said that the baby was stolen from the Oke-Iyimi Health Centre in Ado-Ekiti on Monday, August 4, 2025.
CP Aribo said that the Command received a distress call about the missing baby and quickly sprang into action, tracking Deborah through the receipt and CCTV footage.
He said Deborah was arrested at her residence along Afao Road, Ado-Ekiti, and the baby was recovered safely.
According to him, Deborah was tracked down through a receipt for cotton wool left at the hospital, which led them to a popular supermarket’s CCTV footage.
Deborah pretended to be pregnant by wrapping clothes around her stomach to gain sympathy and access to the hospital’s maternity ward.
She befriended the baby’s parents, offered to help care for the baby, and stole it around 4 am on Monday while the mother was asleep.
Deborah claimed she stole the baby to prevent her UK-based fiancé from abandoning her after she lost a pregnancy in March 2025.
Mustapha Aliyu, 29, the baby’s father, expressed shock and disappointment at Deborah’s actions, describing her as jovial and friendly when they met at the hospital.
Aliyu said though he didn’t know her but she was also in the hospital on Sunday on a claim to come for delivery, only to carry out the operation at the time he entrusted her with supervision.
He mentioned that she had left the health centre at a time to another hospital on Sunday, insinuating that she might have gone there to scout before finally carrying out the operation at Oke-Iyimi Health centre.
The Commissioner of Police, Joseph Eribo, handed the baby over to the parents, while Deborah remained in police custody for further investigation and prosecution.
The CP urged residents to be security-conscious and cooperate with the police by providing credible information to prevent similar incidents.
