In Lagos, young mother poisons infant with petrol

“Ekeh allegedly killed her daughter because she could not pay her hospital bills.”

A young woman identified as Blessing Ekeh is held in police custody for allegedly killing her baby. Ekeh is purported to have killed her three month old baby due to her inability to pay a hospital bill amounting to N50,000.

Ekeh is alleged to have given her baby daughter petrol  motor spirit (PMS) to drink.  It was gathered that Ekeh gave birth to  a baby girl on May 16   through a Caesarian operation  at Ayorodex, a hospital and maternity home in  Oshodi, Lagos where she was charged the sum of N100,000  which she could not afford to pay.

In a bid to coerce payment, the hospital management refused to allow her go back home and she had been confined to the hospital premises since May.

Sources who requested anonymity said Blessing Ekeh struggled to pay half of her bill –  N50,000 but the hospital did not release her. According to the source, Ekeh became desperate and hatched a plan to kill the child in the hospital so as to free herself from the embarrassment.

“On August 21, [she] sneaked outside and stole petrol which was kept for fuelling the hospital power generating set which she used to feed her baby.”

Hospital sources said they heard the baby crying but ignored it assuming a crying infant as normal in a maternity hospital.

“Miss Ekeh allegedly sneaked out of the hospital after killing the baby and went into hiding but during a routine check by nurses who were on duty the baby was found dead on the hospital bed. The nurses raised an alarm and a quick medical examination of the child by the hospital indicated that the child  gave up after sipping some quantity of petrol.

A senior nurse of the hospital, Opeyemi Wahab, went to report the incident at Akinpelu police division. Following the report, the policemen were said to  have arrived the scene of the incident where  the corpse of the baby was removed and taken to a General Hospital for autopsy.

Efforts to get the medical director of the hospital to speak on the incident were not successful as this reporter was turned down by nurses who said the medical director was not in town.

Miss Ekeh  has since been arrested  and the case  transferred to the  Homicide department of the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID) Panti  Yaba for thorough investigation.

-By Jewel Stephen 

Source: DailyTimes