There was outrage in Owerri, the Imo state capital, on Thursday as residents woke up to the disturbing sight of the lifeless body of a day-old child abandoned inside a dustbin.
The incident occurred at a dunghill at Akwakuma Second Gate Junction near Akwakuma Girls secondary School in the state capital.
Residents, who besieged the scene to take a glimpse at the corpse of the day-old child, said the mother could have abandoned it overnight.
“This thing happened last night. We were here till 11pm on Wednesday and this abandoned child who was killed by her own wicked mother was not here.
“What is this world turning into? If the wicked mother could not nurse the child, why keep the pregnancy? Instead of allowing the baby to die by abandoning it, she could have been kind enough to drop the child where the help of a Good Samaritan will come its way,” a resident said.
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Andrew Enwerem, admonished residents to cultivate the habit of alerting the police to emergency developments.
He told our correspondent that he was sending an emergency team immediately to the scene, promising that the Commissioner of Police, Dasuki Galadanchi, would ensure that the mother of the dead newborn was apprehended “to answer for her wickedness.”
The Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri branch, Damian Nosike, urged the police to charge the mother of the dead newborn baby with murder if caught.
The legal practitioner, who described the development as despicable, said, “The law is very clear on matters like this. The mother of the newborn knew that by abandoning the child in an unkempt environment as the dustbin site, the child would die.
“It is clearly a murder case and highly condemn-able.”