Kalu, from Ohafia, Abia state, said the lack of funds to take care of her health condition and fend for the baby forced her into selling her 28-day-old child.

The suspect said after she got pregnant, her lover – whose house she doesn’t know – denied being responsible for the pregnancy.

The bubble burst when two of her accomplices, Patrick Mbama, 41, and Ogechi Ekwebele, 30, were arrested around 2 a.m at Anthony, Lagos while returning from Imo state.

Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, said the baby was crying in the vehicle and the supposed mother of the child, Ekwebele, was advised to breastfeed the baby but her hesitation raised other passengers’ suspicion.

Odumosu said:

“Upon questioning, this particular childless couple claimed that a childless man and wife in Lagos had paid for the said baby.” Kalu, who spoke to journalists, said she was an orphan and a secondary school dropout.

However, a police source disclosed that Kalu is notorious for selling her children, as it was not her first time of giving birth and selling her baby.

The first fake couple, Mbama and Ekwebele, bought the baby from Kalu for N130,000 and resold her for N150,000, to another couple, Izuchukwu Okafor, 51, and Cecilia Okafor, 40, in Lagos.

Okafor said it was the desperation to have a child of my own that pushed her into buying the baby. “Being barren for 15 years is not easy,” she added.