Kingsley Oriaku, an artisan on Waidi Ogunseye Street, Meiran, Lagos State, has owned up to selling one of his five children, a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, Chimamada Oriaku.
He also confessed to kidnapping his neighbour’s seven-year-old son, Gabriel Yanga, barely two months after he moved to the area, adding that he used the N310,000 he realised from the sale of the two children for the burial of his father-in-law.
The 37-year-old Abia State indigene sold his daughter in September 2017 for N190,000 to the operator of an orphanage home in Aba, Abia State, through a self-acclaimed evangelist, Adaeze Obi.
Two days after selling the daughter, he returned to his Lagos residence and reportedly lured Yanga out of the compound, while her mother was not at home.
He was alleged to have subsequently taken him to Obi in Abia State, who linked him up with one Loveth Nwako.
Nwako was said to have led Kingsley and Yanga to her sister in Anambra State.
The sister, Ngozi, collected the child and gave the artisan N120,000.
It was learnt that the suspects were arrested in November by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Lagos State Command, Ikeja, where Yanga’s parents reported the case.
Kingsley was paraded at the command headquarters in Ikeja on Monday along with two of the accomplices, Nwako and Obi.
He revealed that he sold the children to raise funds for the burial of his father-in-law in Abia State.
He said, “I am a bricklayer. My father-in-law died and we wanted to do his burial. People that owed me refused to pay me. I was living in Abia State before with my family. In July, I moved down to Lagos. Early in September 2017, I contacted a nurse called Patience that I wanted Chimamada to be at the orphanage for proper care. She works at a hospital where my wife gave birth to Chimamada.
“Patience directed me to the evangelist, who took Chimamada to the orphanage home. I collected N190,000 from the operator of the orphanage home. Two days after, I came back to Lagos and fled with Gabriel (Yanga). I took him to the evangelist on her request and got N120,000. I used the money for my father in-law’s burial.”
