Standup9ja: How mystery lady stole deaf mute’s baby

The joy of Salamatu Kabiru knew no bounds when she sighted her baby boy in a cot near her at the Yusuf Dantsoho Hospital in Kaduna. 


Unfortunately, for the deaf and mute Salamatu, that joy lasted for only few hours as an unidentified woman who pretended to be a family member took advantage of her inability to talk and the fact that she was yet to come round from the anesthesia administered during her caesarian section, to steal her baby from the hospital. The father of the baby, Kabiru Abubakar, is also deaf. 

The baby was born on January 10, 2018 and stolen the same day.  He was declared missing few hours after he was delivered. Forty-five days after, the whereabouts of the baby and the woman who took him away remain unknown. 
 
However, Salamatu described the woman who stole her baby as tall and light skinned, saying the woman carried the baby from the cot, placed him on her shoulder and pretended to pet him. 
 
Through an interpreter, she explained “The baby was crying and my husband brought him so that I could breast feed him. Later the baby slept off and one of the nurses laid him in his cot. My husband was asked to go and buy some drugs and as he stepped out of the ward, he collapsed and people rushed to help him,” she said.
 
Salamatu’s mother, Hajiya Fatima, who was also at the hospital when the incident took place said, “After the operation, the nurses asked us to go and buy some drugs before it gets dark. So, we went to buy the drugs, leaving the baby in the cot sleeping. 

Shortly after we came back, we discovered that the baby was no longer in the cot and we asked the mother. She said a tall, light-skinned woman carried him on her shoulder, petting him and that was all she knew. The woman arranged the shawl and cap as though the baby was still there,” she explained. 
 
 Another family member, Amina, said “the woman who stole the baby took advantage of Salamatu’s disability.”
 
A source at the hospital told our reporter that the woman had earlier attempted to steal a baby from another woman in the same hospital but she resisted her before she succeeded in taking Salamatu’s baby.
 
This incident has generated reactions from different quarters. Describing the act as unacceptable, the Kaduna State chapter of Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) has written a letter to Governor Nasir El-Rufai over the theft of the day-old baby.
 
The letter, signed by the vice chairman of the association, Suleiman Abdulazeez, and copied to the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, urged the state government to investigate and fish out the culprit. 
 
The Commissioner for Women Affairs, Hajiya Hafsat Baba, said her ministry is liaising with the Ministry of Health to unravel the circumstance that led to the disappearance of the baby, with a view to ensuring that the baby is traced and returned to his mother. 
 
Also, the Association of Deaf Women in Kaduna State has condemned the act, calling for the creation of a disabled-friendly unit in all government hospitals in the state. 
 
While the search for the baby continues, residents of the state have called on the state government to strategically mount Close Circuit Television (CCTV) in public hospitals as well as beef up security. 
 
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Mohammed Bello, also condemned the incident but said that relatives of patients make it difficult for nurses to do their work, adding that nurses are usually molested by patients’ relatives when they are barred from entering the wards at wrong times. He noted that the hospital had never recorded such a case before.