A Nigerian housewife identified as Kwaseve Fagal has been arrested by the Nasasarrawa police command for murdering her newborn child for money rituals.
The 38-year-old woman, who blamed poverty as the reason she committed such a dastardly act, said her husband and her were petty farmers who were struggling to survive.
According to reports, the suspect said she took the option after a native doctor in her village promised to give her wealth in exchange for the baby’s life.
On August 14, 2017, the housewife who had nursed a full-term pregnancy, was delivered of a baby boy in her home at Gakerko village, Keana Local Government area of Nasarawa State, but the joy of her husband, Paul Fagal, aged 40, evaporated shortly after.
The couple who already had two children after 14 years of marriage, said the arrival of the newborn worsened their situation and they were left in hunger for days on several occasions.
However, Paul, the woman’s husband claimed to have no idea of the happenings and the financial burden his wife was going through which led to the act.
Acting on the instruction of a herbalist, she discreetly took the infant to a secluded area of the community shortly after birth and killed him. Then, she took his blood in a clay pot and dumped the remains in a nearby stream.
But the bubble burst as the sudden disappearance of the baby aroused apprehension in the community, amid suspicion that the mother from hell might have committed sacrilege.
After summoning all the women in the community for interrogation, a threat by the village head, Mathew Oloko, to further conduct an orthodox and traditional probe into the incident, unveiled Kwaseve as the perpetrator of the act.
Kwaseve eventually led the search party to the decomposed body of the baby and was arrested by the police.
She later confessed to the crime after being drilled by the police.
She said, “Life became very difficult for my husband and I to a point that having food daily became a problem, not to talk of catering for the two children we already had.
“The kids were not feeding well; we go hungry for days because we don’t have money to buy food.
“Though we are farmers, things didn’t just work well for us. That was why when the Baba (Alhaji Loko), who hails from Kaduna State approached me with an offer to lift the burden of abject poverty, I gladly accepted”,