News
Court seizes baby smuggled into UK from Nigerian ‘mother’ *Given British citizen
Luck seems to have run out against a woman, named by a court in the United Kingdom as Susan, who allegedly smuggled a baby from Nigeria into the country, as she has been dispossessed of it and now undergoing prosecution.
A High Court in Leeds held that the claim by the woman that the baby was her child was false as investigation proved that there was no biological link between, her husband and the baby, prompting a decision to take it away from them and placed for adoption after being granted a new identity and British nationality.
Reports say “Susan” was arrested by Sussex Police at Gatwick Airport after arriving in the UK in 2024 with a very young child, Eleanor, also a pseudonyms and that DNA tests later confirmed that neither she, nor her husband had any genetic link to the baby.
Susan had been living in West Yorkshire with her family since June 2023. Prior to travelling to Nigeria in early June 2024, she had told her GP that she was pregnant and intended to give birth in her home country. But medical scans and blood tests showed no pregnancy instead, doctors found a tumour they feared could be cancerous, which she refused to treat.
Despite the findings, Susan insisted she was pregnant, telling her employer, “My babies are always hidden.” She also claimed her previous pregnancies had lasted up to 30 months and were undetectable via ultrasound.
After returning from Nigeria with the baby, Susan informed her local hospital that she had given birth. Her doctors, unconvinced, contacted child services, prompting police to arrest her. Eleanor was taken into foster care, and DNA tests were ordered for Susan, her husband, and the child.
When the tests returned negative, Susan demanded a second round, which confirmed the results. She then changed her story, claiming she had conceived the child via in-vitro fertilisation using a donor egg and sperm before moving to the UK in 2023.
To support her claim, she submitted a letter from a Nigerian hospital allegedly signed by its medical director, affirming she had given birth there. She also provided another document about IVF treatment and supplied photos and videos showing a woman in a hospital’s labour suite. However, the images did not show her face. One particularly graphic image showed a naked woman with a placenta between her legs and an umbilical cord still attached.
The Leeds family court sent social worker Henrietta Coker, with nearly 30 years of experience, to Nigeria to investigate the claims. Her findings were damning.
At the hospital where Susan claimed to have undergone IVF, Coker found no record of her treatment. Staff told her the documents had been forged. Coker then visited the facility where Susan claimed to have given birth.
“She described the site as a shabby, three-bedroom flat with stained walls and dirty carpets,” the court heard.
Coker added: “I was met by three young teenage girls wearing nurses’ uniforms. When I asked to see the matron, I was ushered into the kitchen, where a teenage girl was eating rice.”
She eventually tracked down the doctor who allegedly signed the birth letter. He admitted that “someone had given birth” but, when shown Susan’s photo, shook his head and denied she was the patient.
“Impersonating people is common in this part of the world,” the doctor told her, suggesting that Susan may have “bought the baby.”
Despite her investigation, Coker was unable to determine the identity or origin of baby Eleanor. The doctor said he believed the child had been “voluntarily given up.”
Further revelations emerged in court. Susan’s phone, seized at the judge’s request, contained messages to a contact saved as “Mum oft sic Lagos Baby.” One message from Susan, sent about four weeks before the supposed birth, read: “Good afternoon ma, I have not seen the hospital items.” The same day, the recipient replied: “Delivery drug is 3.4m. Hospital bill 170k.”
The court was told the messages had been set to “automatic self-destruct mode,” which the local authority said was clear evidence of a deal to purchase a baby.
Susan attempted to explain the texts, but the judge described her testimony as “difficult to follow and impossible to accept.”
In a damning judgement, the deputy High Court judge concluded: “Susan and her husband put forward a fundamental lie to explain how Eleanor came to be in their care. They attempted to mislead the authorities with false documents, and in doing so, they caused the child significant emotional and psychological harm.”
Despite the couple’s plea to have Eleanor returned—describing her as “a fundamental part of their family unit”—the judge made a declaration of non-parentage and ordered the child be placed for adoption.
The ruling means Eleanor will be assigned a new identity and granted British nationality.
The case echoes a similar incident in April, when UK Border Force officers intercepted another Nigerian couple attempting to bring in a baby, later identified as Lucy, who was not biologically theirs.
Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor of Oyo State, on Thursday, finally threw his hats into the ring by declaring his intention to run for president in 2027, with a message – history beckons.
The governor, whose ambition has been a matter of speculations for months now and who had teamed up with forces angling to force President Bola Tinubu, out of power, told a teeming crowd in Ibadan on Thursday that time had come to reset Nigeria.
At a mega-rally to announce the alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, (APM), Makinde, expressed worry over the dwindling fortunes of Nigerians, vowing to engage Nigerians to end the drift.
Hear him: “Without a multi-party system, there is no democracy. Where is our multi-party? Where do we go from here? We have been pushed to the wall.
“They calculated and self-opposition cannot unite but I am here to say that the opposition is the everyday Nigerian. This is the time for all us to ensure Nigeria works for us. This is the time to confront it fears. It is time to engage as citizens and not spectators.
“For the opposition political parties, this is the time to unite and work in unity and give our nation the much reset it needs. The time to reset Nigeria is now. Ibadan is the city of warriors. The first grand alliance is formed. The PDP and APM is formed. This handshake will allow us to field candidates from presidency to state Assembly. And so, I declare my candidacy for office of the president of Nigeria.”
Eyo Ekpe, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), on Wednesday, gave a detailed account on how operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) manhandled him on Monday.
He told reporters that he was at sea on why he should fall victim to the assault against his person and eventually arrested given that was not right person directly involved in the information the agency sought.
Some operatives of the EFCC who invaded the hospital, had whisked Ekpe away after firing teargas to scare away the workers, patients and visitors to the hospital, following what appeared like a fracas the ensued over what it claimed was a routine duty in the facility.
Ekpe, Deputy Chairman of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), described how an operative had first entered his office to make inquiries on why the hospital was yet to give a response to an EFCC inquiry over a medical report linked to a suspect facing trial.
He detailed how he briefed the operative that the said response was being prepared and even went ahead to show him the draft of a letter in that regard, which needed to go through the gamut of official endorsement before being released.
Hear him: “The head of that internal medicine department looked at the report and also discovered that the name of the doctor that signed the report is not a member of staff of that department.
“I had prepared prepared a response to the EFCC on Monday, May 11, 2026, based on the findings. When the EFCC operative visited my office the next morning to collect the document, I told him that the response was ready in draft. I even showed him the draft, but told him that the document still needed approval from the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital before it could be officially signed and released.
“He pretended to have accepted that. He left, but later later returned with another armed operative and informed me that I was under arrest. I asked him why. I was not the one that issued the medical report. My name is not on the medical report. The report was not issued from my unit.
“But he said I would get the answer when I get to their office. I then asked him to at least wait for my staff member who I sent on an errand before joining them. But they refused.
“They started pushing me. They dragged me out of the office. Then I began to cry while they were dragging me. They had warned me not to speak. They had taken my phone. My cry as they were dragging me, attracted the workers to the scene, who enquired what was going on, but because they ordered me not to speak, I couldn’t say anything. They had their guns.
The members of staff of the hospital initially blocked them from taking me away. They then made a call. After that I saw many masked and armed men came violently, broke the protector, threatening the people that were around and people ran away.
“They picked some staff that were still by me. they dragged me and other staff, five of us into their van downstairs. By that time they discovered that the gate of the hospital were locked. So, they drove towards the gate and packed and the commotion continued. We were inside the van.
“I was so emotionally and psychologically traumatised that I couldn’t even look out of the vehicle to see what was happening outside. But I know that teargas and live bullets were shot. That’s all I can say for now.”
Joyce Abdulmalik, of the Federal High Court, Abuja, heard on Wednesday, how Zenith Bank raised alarm over the huge transaction in one of its branches by Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF-MoJ).
The bank said it immediately filed a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) in respect to the transactions, during its appearance in the ongoing trial of Malami, his wife, and son over allegation of massive looting of funds belonging to the Federal Government during his tenure.
Mashelia Bata, a compliance officer with the bank, who appeared as witness in the case, where Malami, et al, are facing a 16-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N8.7 billion, to which they pleaded not guilty, gave the testimony while being questioned on the bank’s roles in the matter.
Details of the testimony conveyed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), stated how the compliance officer who was cross-examined by Adebayo Adedeji, lawyer to the defendants admitted that the deposits in the account statements complied with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Arguments had stretched when Adedeji, opposed Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), lawyer to the EFCC, who had asked the witness to explain the meaning of a suspicious transaction report, stressing that there was no ambiguity in the term.
However, Okutepa, in response, maintained that section 215(3) of the Evidence Act did not preclude him from re-examining the witness while urging the court to allow the question for proper explanation.
After Abdulmalik, agreed and overruled Adedeji, the witness told the court that banks were required to alert the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) about fund deposits coming in a repetitive pattern, adding: “Any deposition of funds seen in a pattern or repetitive, you must escalate it to the NFIU.”
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