Mentally challenged woman delivers baby on the road

A middle-aged woman, Ubi Eze, has given birth to a baby boy on a road in Arepo, a community in Ogun State.


A resident of the community, Mr. Akinlolu Akinsanmi, who took the woman to a hospital nearby, said that the woman was lying in a pool of blood with her newborn baby in the middle of the road around 6.am last Thursday.


Akinsanmi said, “I was jogging down to the gym before 6.00 am when I saw that two people had gathered around a woman who seemed to be in labour. Before I got there, she had had the baby. But she was still covered up in blood and she looked weak.

“The other people went to get an ambulance. After waiting for some minutes, I ran to the nearest hospital to get help. The workers then put the woman in a wheelchair and took her to the hospital for treatment.”

Our correspondent, who spoke with Eze on Friday at the hospital, gathered that she been sighted loitering around the community some weeks before the incident occurred. Also, there is an indication that Eze may have been experiencing some mental challenges while she was pregnant.

The young mother told our correspondent that she walked from Majidun in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State to Arepo in Ogun State.

Eze, who had difficulty explaining her condition, alleged that she was thrown out of her residence by her  boyfriend, whom she identified as Lekin Namodun, after  unresolved arguments about the paternity of the baby.

The Delta State indigene also admitted that she did not know how she got pregnant.

She said, “I came to Lagos a few years ago with my friend (name unknown) who later abandoned me. I was homeless and I started sleeping in other people’s shops before I met my boyfriend who gave me shelter.

“Later I travelled to Warri to see my parents. It was after I came back to Lagos that noticed I was pregnant. My boyfriend did not allow me to enter the house because he warned me against going to Warri in the first place.

“I started living in the Christ Healing Church at Majidun before I walked down to this place (Arepo). I don’t remember sleeping with any man, not even with my boyfriend. I just noticed that I had stopped seeing my menstrual period before I left for Warri.”

Head of the Nursing Department of ROA Specialist hospital, Mrs. Adesola Obey, who told our correspondent that Eze could be mentally-challenged, said the hospital had contacted the Lagos State Government to help rehabilitate the nursing mother and possibly reconnect her with her family.

Obey said, “A good Samaritan rushed to inform us that a woman had given birth on the road. We followed him to the spot and brought her to the hospital with our wheelchair. She was looking unkempt, almost like a mentally challenged woman.

“Although her baby was out, the placenta was still inside her body. We quickly assisted with the final processes of the delivery. Mother and child are fine. We have informed the police station and some NGOs that we thought could be of help.

“Also, we have informed the Lagos State Government about her condition. But we were told that the case was not within the jurisdiction of the government, which later accepted her for rehabilitation.”