Nigerian Newsday

A private medical clinic in Zaria, Kaduna State,(name withheld) is said to engage in the dirty game of selling babies.

Nigerian Newsday investigation revealed that the medical director of the hospital (names also withheld) is connected with ladies and girls who get pregnant and deliver babies they do not wish to keep.

A source who wishes to remain anonymous said most of the patients who patronise the dubious doctor are students and ladies already engaged to be married but got pregnant as a result of illicit sex with someone other than their man.

The doctor allegedly delivers them of the babies but sells them to those who indicate interest in buying them. The buyers are either women who have been barren for years or those who after having one child are unable to have another.

One of the women who allegedly bought a baby girl two weeks back, at the rate of about N20,000.00, to be paid in instalments, had her first and last child over fifteen years ago and had been seeking to have more since then, without success.

The little baby girl she bought was delivered by a 23-year-old Southern Kaduna girl (names withheld) who allegedly told the physician, after a safe delivery, to kill the baby. Her reason, Nigerian Newsday gathered, was that as a student of Kaduna Polytechnic, it would be difficult for her to fend for a baby and that having a baby around her would not allow her to continue to play "the young girl".

The doctor who allegedly has a reputation of selling such babies had earlier been contacted by the woman who eventually bought the baby.

Nigerian Newsday source said shortly after the woman was contacted to come and collect the baby girl, a ritualist who also patronised the doctor came offering something higher, but was told he might not have it because the woman had earlier booked for and was promised the baby.

Nigerian Newsday was also reliably told of a baby boy that was delivered penultimate week by a Hausa girl already engaged by someone but who offered the baby for sale because she allegedly had it for a man other than her husband to be.

To confirm the hint, Nigerian Newsday reporter went undercover requesting to buy a male child from the supposed doctor.

He obliged to the request of the reporter after listening to his make-believe pathetic story of many fruitless years of seeking a child, but the doctor said that the babies were not always readily handy except if the reporter could wait a day or two.

He however insisted on the reporter coming along with the person who recommended him to the hospital. When this reporter could not oblige his request he became suspicious and subjected the reporter to a rigorous investigation that eventually revealed the true identity of the reporter as a journalist.

On this discovery, the apprehensive doctor began to deny that he was into the deal of baby trafficking. When the reporter confronted him with his previous admission and willingness to offer for sale the baby boy that was delivered a week before by the Hausa girl, he flatly denied it saying it was somebody else and not himself the reporter talked to.

The embattled doctor directed the reporter to another hospital and maternity (names also withheld) also in Zaria.

When this reporter located the hospital and maternity which is a five-bedroom flat turned in to a hospital, the medical director who said he was a retired military man denied any involvement in child trafficking.

But our reporter laid siege on the first hospital and trailed a nurse that removed a baby boy to be sold to a woman who had earlier bought a baby girl from the same hospital two years back.

Nigerian Newsday further gathered that the retired military officer at the second hospital worked at the sick bay of Nigerian Military School, Zaria. It was learned that he used to collaborate with workers of the Social Welfare Office, Zaria, to get and process adoption papers for women who buy babies from him after due payment for the babies have been completed.

Efforts to get authorities of the social welfare unit in Zaria to comment on the issue of adoption of babies and the involvement of other persons failed, as the relevant officers were said to be absent from office each time the reporter called.

Similarly, repeated efforts by Nigerian Newsday to get Kaduna State executives of Nigerian Medical Association to comment on the professional implications of a medical practitioner trafficking in babies proved abortive.

However, a resident surgeon who identified himself as Dr. C. Pam, said the idea of any doctor trafficking in babies was not only weird but unheard of.

Said he: "Not only is it morally repulsive, it is criminal and whoever does that stands to loose his certificate and the right to practice, if caught".