20-year-old prostitute kills her 4-day-old baby with rat poison

• Posted on September 18, 2013September 18, 2013
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

A 4-day-old baby boy has been gruesomely murdered by his own mother who fed him with a N40 rat poison. Binta Shuaibu, 20, conspired with her friend, Hindatu Umar, 27, to commit the dastardly act in Dan Amarya village, Danja Local Government Area of Katsina State. The mother and her co-conspirator are now answering to the wicked act in police custody.

What could make a mother willfully kill her own baby? The suspect, Binta tells her story to Sunday Sun: “I was born in Layin-Ruwa, Kafur Local Government Area of Katsina State. I got married 11years ago and my husband, Inusa later forced me to divorce him. I have only one son, Aminu for him.

“After the divorce, I decided to go into prostitution. The money I got from prostitution is what I use to feed my father in the village. My father had divorced my mother because my mother begged him to allow me to returnto my former husband, but my father rejected the advice. My father divorced my mother because of that.

“While engaged in prostitution, I suddenly had an unwanted pregnancy, which I did not terminate. I was able to conceal the pregnancy and successfully had the baby boy delivered in my room.

“The ward head, Maiunguwa in the village where I was doing prostitution had warned all prostitutes not to haveunwanted pregnancy, and that anyone who got pregnant must relocate to any nearby village to deliver and care for the baby there.

“But because of the warning by village head, I was at a loss to what to do with the baby and my calling as a prostitute.

“My good friend, Hindatu Umar suggested that since we do not want to stop prostitution, we should kill the baby. We both went into the street and bought rat poison for N40 and used it to kill the baby.”

Asked how the baby was actually killed, Binta said, “It was about midnight that the act was carried out. I told my friend, Hindatu that I would not want to witness the killing of my own child.

“Hindatu was the one who fed my baby with the poison. She forced him to drink the poison. When she wanted to do it, I went into the other room and took a drug, Valium 5 and slept off. I woke up to see that my baby was dead. We wrapped the dead body with clothes.”

News of the heinous crime soon filtered out and the partners in crime were apprehended.

Binta spoke further, “Unknown to us, the ward head had heard about the news that my baby was killed. He quickly went to Danja Police Station, reported the incident and we were arrested by the police.”

In her own confession, Hindatu Umar said, “I am a prostitute. My friend, Binta delivered a baby boy and we have a law by the ward head in the village of Danja that he doesn’t want any unwanted pregnancy and that any of us prostitutes who gets pregnant should leave the village and deliver the baby in the next village.

“We still enjoy our job as prostitutes and so, we both decided to kill the baby. I suggested to her to kill the baby. We went into the street and bought local rat killer and by midnight I gave the baby the poison and he drank the poison and died instantly. I took the container and dropped it in the toilet. Later the news spread and policemen from Danja Police Station arrested us.

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