Woman nabbed for stealing identical twins 21/3/2009






Stories by EbeleBONIFACE


A forty-year-old woman, Kudirat Sulaimon Atanda, who claimed to be childless but nursed the ambition of having children of her own has been arrested for allegedly stealing four-year-old identical female twins.

Atanda, who resides at Ajegunle, Lagos was arrested last week in Birnin-Kebbi in Kebbi State. She was interrogated by the Army Intelligence Officers units attached to First Battalion, Birnin Kebbi and was transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti, Lagos for further investigation.

The suspect was alleged to have stolen the twins, Taiwo and Kehinde Ogedengbe from 14, Odufua Street Ajegunle and 2, Akintoye Street, Ajegunle, respectively, all in Lagos on February 17, 2009. The mother of the twins, Rose Ogedengbe is said to be of unsound mind and hospitalised in a herbal home in Lagos.

It was revealed that the suspect once lived in Ajegunle but relocated to Kebbi State about two years ago. She was a close friend of Mrs. Rose Ogedengbe, the legitimate mother of the stolen twins. She is said to be a regular visitor to the house of Ogedengbes, as at the time the latter gave birth to the twin girls and she reportedly took delights in feeding and taking care of them.

According to a relation to the mother of the twins, one Mrs. Betty Lander (aka Mama Ijaw), the suspect had been a close friend to the family of the twins. She said: "The suspect, Mrs Kudirat Atanda is very close to the family of the twins. All of them live in Ajegunle, Lagos. The woman used to pay the family visit, and on several occasions, she would buy biscuits or some other gifts for the twins. She was also fond of cuddling the twins. Right from 2007 to 2008, the woman had been very close to the mother of the twins and she had been taking care of the twins without anybody suspecting her intention."

Continuing, she said: "But on February 17, when the woman came to Ajegunle from a long distance travel, she started showing great care to the twins to the extent that the twins were calling her ‘mother.’

"The fact is that the real mother of the twins is currently in a local hospital undergoing treatment for a psychiatric-related illness. So, she was not around when the suspect came around to steal the children. Nobody saw her when she took them away.

"When the family could not locate the twins, they reported the case to the police and after all efforts to find the children failed, they were declared missing. Their photographs and details of their disappearance were published in a national daily."

Lander further said: "However, when a copy of the newspaper was bought by a soldier in a barracks in Kebbi State where the suspect was hiding with the twins, the soldiers got the information and immediately gave the woman out as he attracted the attention of the police in the state.

"When the police investigated the woman, she confessed that the twin girls were not her children, rather, she took them away from Lagos without the permission of their parents but wanted to keep them as her children as she was childless."

The case, Lander said, was later transferred to the SCID, Panti, Lagos. Efforts to see the new Deputy Commissioner of Police, Barrister Nicholas Duru Nkemdeme for his comment proved abortive.

The Nation

later met the Commissioner, Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo in his office, who said, "The suspect will be charged to court."