15th July, 2011
A 54-year old Nigerian trader, Bola Bello who was arrested for allegedly stealing an eight-month old baby boy, was on Thursday arraigned before an Accra Circuit Court.
Bello whose plea was not taken, has been charged with ‘stealing a child’.
She has been remanded in police custody to re-appear on July 20.
Bello, answering questions from Mrs Ivy Heward Mills, the trial judge, denied the claim that she stole the child from Nigeria.
She said she adopted the child from a Nigerian adoption home but forgot to bring along the adoption papers when they were coming to Ghana.
The prosecutor, Chief Inspector A.A. Ahor, said that on 6 July, the Police received information from a concerned citizen that a Nigerian woman who lived at Lapaz Six to Six in Accra had brought an eight-month- old baby boy to her house.
He said the informant suspected that Bello had stolen the child from Nigeria.
Chief Inspector Ahor said the police on receiving the information went to Lapaz where the baby was rescued and the suspect arrested.
He said Bello in her caution statement, among other things, claimed that she was the biological mother of the baby and that she brought him from Nigeria to Ghana in March 2011.
Chief Inspector Ahor also said later Bello was taken to the Police Hospital where she was examined adding, the report submitted on her indicated that she was unlikely to have given birth to the child eight months earlier.
Meanwhile, the baby has since been sent to the Osu Children’s Home for custody and protection.