After a rugged undercover investigation that spanned 19 months, ace journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, exposed a Christian Orphanage with the name, Arrows of God, which trades in babies.
The orphanage, with its headquarters in Lagos, and what appears to be a baby factory in Anambra, was founded by Rev. D. C. Ogo, a retired Army Colonel, former Principal of the Nigerian Army School of Nursing and Midwifery and an ordained Christian Minister.
Soyombo, along with another lady also undercover, posed as parents desperately seeking to adopt a child from the orphanage after receiving a tip-off in December 2021 about the illegal trade.
At the time of the tip off, baby cost N1.5 million, Soyombo said. But nineteen months later, when it was time to buy his own, it has jumped to N2 million, perhaps, as part of the inflationary trend affecting everything in the country.
Fisayo said the N2 million is excluding a list of sundry pre-purchase expenses and covert requests for the greasing of palms.
He was later handed a baby who looks like a three months old. He named the baby Oriade.
The investigation implicated the police, the judiciary and officials of the Anambra State government, who all facilitated the paperwork for the trade under the guise of adoption.
After exposing the illicit trade, Soyombo said NAPTIP officials initiated contact to state their readiness to receive the baby. He said the handover was completed last Wednesday when two staff of FIJ, which is the media outfit that published the story, turned in the baby to the Lagos Zonal Command of NAPTIP headed by one Comfort Agboko.
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