Claims and counter claims have dogged the statement by Nigerian Police in Rivers State that the Tender Life Care Centre, stormed on Tuesday is an illegal maternity home and a baby factory.
Police claimed to have rescued 24 babies, four expectant mothers and four nursing mothers from the Centre, in Woji Axis of the oil city of Port Harcourt.
And on Thursday, the command paraded 34 people, including minors, picked at the centre, saying its men stormed it based on an intelligence that it was being run by a child trafficking syndicate.
But in a swift denial, Eunice Uchendu, a lawyer to the owner of the centre slammed police for acting unprofessionally by arresting her client without due diligence.
Rivers Police PRO Nnamdi Omoni, insists Tender Life Care involved in child trafficking
Uchendu said the centre is a duly registered NGO, an orphanage, helping ladies who are burdened with unwanted pregnancies to get succour and rehabilitation, to enable them continue with their education.
She vehemently denied that the centre, which began operation in 2018, was a baby factory.
Some of the teenagers arrested by the police also denied being used to produce babies for the ‘factory’, EastWest Reporters, a local online newspaper said.
Queen from Beira in Ogoniland said she was impregnated by her boyfriend and came to the centre because she wanted to avoid the shame of carrying pregnancy in the community.
She said someone referred her to Tender Life Care in Woji, adding that said since she gave birth in December, she had been well taken care of by the Orphanage.
Helen, who is 16 years old from Eleme, also in Rivers said her parents brought her to the centre after her boyfriend denied ownership of the pregnancy.
She said her parents visited her and she had no need to worry as she was comfortable staying with Tender Life Care Centre.
Another teenager, identified as Rose, condemned the police for jumping to conclusion.
She said she was raped by a big man in her community and the matter was reported to police but the man used money to bribe the police.
Due to shame, she had to leave the community through the help of some family and church members to Tender Life Care Center to give birth.
She wondered why the police were harassing her again, when they could not bring her alleged rapist to justice.
Some of the men paraded alongside the women also denied the allegation by police that they impregnated any of the girls.
They claimed they work at the ground floor while the orphanage operates upstairs.
They said they had no business with the orphanage.
According to them, the police busted into the compound in a commando style and whisked every soul in the premises away, including passersby.
However, the police public relations officer Nnamdi Omoni while parading the suspects said men of the Crack unit of the command, following a covert operation busted the centre, claiming it was involved with child trafficking.
Omoni said the operation took place on Tuesday.
“In a covert operation on Tuesday, our men burst a child trafficking syndicate at Woji in Port Harcourt where 24 babies between the ages of one and two, and four pregnant teenagers were rescued,” Omoni said.
He said the victims were looking “frail and malnourished” and had been hospitalised while investigations were ongoing to find those responsible for the facility.
Police raids on illegal maternity units — dubbed “baby factories” — have been relatively common in Nigeria, especially in the south.
The “factories” are usually small facilities parading as private medical clinics that house pregnant women and offer their babies for sale. In some cases, young women have allegedly been held against their will and raped, with their newborns sold on the black market.
But security services also said in many cases, the facilities have seen unmarried women with unplanned pregnancies arrive voluntarily or through persuasion.
Baby boys are typically sold for 500,000 naira ($1,400, 1,250 euros) while girls fetch 300,000 naira, police have said in previous cases.