After her recent arrest for dumping her newborn baby just after delivery in Ogbomosho, Oyo state, Dupe Alabi, a single mum of five has opened up on why she took the drastic decision to abandon her own child.
In a chat with BBC Yoruba, Dupe said many years ago she got “married’ to her first husband, a carpenter, with whom she had her first child. However, they had a big fight and she left the marriage when their child turned seven.
She told BBC that she moved out of his house to Ogbomosho where she started working at a canteen. She said it was there she met her second husband whom she had two children for, a boy and a girl. According to her, while she was married to her second husband, her first husband kept on coming to her, insisting she must return to him. She said she refused since she was already married to another man.
Dupe said her second husband packed out of their matrimonial home and moved in with another lady after he got wind that her first husband was making advances at her and threatening to take her back. She said her second husband left her with three children and no source of income.
Dupe who could not hold back tears said she had to return to her parents’ house with her three children and began to hawk some items just to make a living. She said her second husband refused to provide money for the upkeep of their children.
According to her, her first husband called her one day and informed her that he was willing to take her back with all her children. She told him she wouldn’t be able to come as she has nowhere to send her children from her second marriage. She said her first husband asked her not to worry and promised to take care of all three children.
The distraught mum said she returned to him and had another child for him. According to her, they had another disagreement when he asked her to return the children from her second husband to him. When the demand became too much, she moved out of his house with her four children.
Dupe said a year and a half later, her first husband called her and asked her to come and collect some money for the upkeep of his children. She went and they had sex which resulted in her fifth pregnancy. When she realized she was pregnant, she reached out to him and he denied owning the pregnancy.
Ashamed and confused as to how she would take care of five children, Dupe said it was then she made up her mind to hide her pregnancy and dump the baby when she gives birth. She said she denied her pregnancy even when people who saw her asked if she was pregnant.
On the 11th of August, when I had my baby, I did not not inform anybody. While I was having contractions, I went to the back of an abandoned building close to Akala Hospital in Oke Elerin. People go into the abandoned building to defecate and then throw it away.
That was where I stood and the baby came out. Panicking, I carried the baby and didn’t know whether it was a boy or a girl. I just carried the baby and dropped it on the floor close the hospital where the workers can see the baby.
Then I hung around to see if anybody will carry the baby and hope that nobody will guess that I was the one who dropped the child.
After the baby was carried, I left for home. At about 8pm, I returned to my house. When I greeted them in my house, the husband of the woman who brought me to where I reside, surprising asked if I wasn’t the one who gave birth and dumped the baby.
I wanted to deny but the man told me that my baby was in Akala hospital and that my mother is around and that everyone had been looking for me since morning. That was when I couldn’t say anything anymore. I began to cry and I couldn’t deny the fact that I wasn’t the one that dropped the baby there”
The Local government chairman in Ogbomosho Central, Adeyinka Remi Oluwaseun, has taken over the upkeep of her baby and has also promised to provide her with a job within the council.
