The Anambra State Government has arrested a woman, Ogechukwu Eneh, for allegedly using a 10-year-old ailing girl to beg for alms in the state.
Chidinma Ikeanyionwu, a media aide to the Commissioner for Women and Social Welfare in the state, Ify Obinabo, disclosed this in a statement, Friday.
Ms Eneh, 27, was arrested by Mrs Obinabo, who caught her at Oyeolisa Ogbunike in Oyi Local Government Area of the state while using the victim to beg for alms.
The suspect hails from Udi, a community in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State.
The victim comes from Benue State, north-central Nigeria.
Suspect speaks
Ms Eneh, on interrogation, told the commissioner that she was only helping the girl and her family solicit support from people to raise money for the child’s medical treatment.
The suspect claimed that the victim was suffering from a tumour which caused her stomach to protrude and that a doctor had asked the family to bring N400,000 for a surgical operation.
She claimed she had been using the child to beg since December but could only realise N100,000 before her arrest.
Mrs Obinabo subsequently handed the suspect over to police operatives at Ogidi Divisional Headquarters. The case was later transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department of Police.
She warned that the state government has zero tolerance for crime, especially when it involves abuse of children, according to the statement.
“The suspect will soon be arraigned before the Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Magistrate Court in Awka,” Mrs Obinabo said.
The commissioner said she had taken the girl to a hospital “for medical examination and possible treatment.”
She vowed to sustain the onslaught against crime suspects, particularly child offenders in the state, maintaining that anybody caught would be prosecuted in line with Nigerian law.
