Before dawn on Monday, Ogun State Police operatives moved on a quiet street in Abaren Village, near Mowe, acting on weeks of intelligence about a suspected child-trafficking ring hiding inside an unremarkable home.
By 8:00 a.m. on August 24, the operation was over. Six suspects were in handcuffs. Two heavily pregnant women and four children, two boys and two girls, had been pulled from what police describe as an illegal “baby factory,” the latest in a string of such busts that have haunted parts of Nigeria for nearly two decades.
The raid took place at a property on Toluwalase Street, Abaren Village, reached via Gbarinmole, in the Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of the state.
According to a statement issued Tuesday in Abeokuta by the command’s deputy police public relations officer, ASP Oluborode Opeyemi, the operation was the product of sustained, intelligence-led surveillance rather than a chance discovery.
“The command has recorded a significant breakthrough in the ongoing fight against human trafficking and child exploitation,” the statement read, describing the dismantling of the syndicate as a coordinated strike rather than a routine sweep.
Police identified the two rescued pregnant women as 23-year-old Ilesanmi Foluke, reportedly seven months into her pregnancy, and 20-year-old Ejekwa Melody, said to be eight months pregnant.
Both were said to have been held at the facility as part of what investigators are calling a systematic pattern of trafficking and illegal adoption.
The six people taken into custody were named as Florence Glory Ogbona, 58; Magdalene Julius, 63; Chidike Egwuonwu, 40; Onyechu Chidike, 35; Stephen Ogbona, 39; and Oseni Kusamotu Idaya, a nurse said to have assisted with deliveries at the facility.
Investigators believe the group operated the site as a covert maternity and adoption racket, allegedly receiving pregnant women in many cases believed to be vulnerable or coerced before selling their newborns once they gave birth.
Preliminary findings, police say, indicate the operation had been running for some time before it was uncovered, with children born at the facility funneled into illegal adoption channels rather than any recognized, legal process.
What might otherwise have been a straightforward, if disturbing, rescue operation took a darker turn when detectives, following further leads, traced their investigation to a hospital in the Mowe area.
There, they found a third alleged victim: 26-year-old Blessing Bright Effiong, who police say had given birth to a baby boy on August 20 four days before the raid.
Effiong was still receiving medical treatment when officers arrived. Her son, however, was nowhere to be found. Investigators say they could not establish the infant’s whereabouts, a gap that prompted the immediate arrest of the nurse attending to Effiong as detectives try to determine what became of the child.
The disappearance of the newborn has become the most urgent thread in an already sprawling investigation, one that police say will now determine not just how the alleged syndicate operated, but where its youngest, most vulnerable victim has gone.
The file has since been handed to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) in Eleweran, Abeokuta, for what police describe as continued and diligent investigation.
Detectives are expected to work on three fronts simultaneously: establishing the full scope of the syndicate’s operations, locating the missing infant, and building a case for the prosecution of all six suspects.
The Commissioner of Police for Ogun State, CP Bode Ojajuni, commended the officers involved and used the moment to reaffirm the command’s broader campaign against human trafficking, child trading, and violent crime across the state.
He renewed a now-familiar appeal to residents: stay alert, and pass along credible, timely information to police, who he said would continue to lean on intelligence-led policing to keep communities safe.
Illegal “baby factories” are not new to Nigeria. Rights groups, including Equality Now, I have documented the phenomenon since at least 2006, when UNESCO first reported on such operations.
The facilities are often disguised as maternity homes, orphanages, or religious centers and have previously surfaced in states including Abia, Lagos, and Ebonyi, as well as Ogun.
Advocates describe the women held in these facilities as frequently coerced or deceived, sometimes assaulted, before their children are sold into adoption, forced labor, sex trafficking, or worse.
It is a trade that has proven difficult to stamp out, resurfacing periodically despite repeated police crackdowns, a pattern this week’s arrests in Mowe appear to grimly confirm.
For now, the Ogun State Police Command says it will keep the public informed as the investigation develops and detectives continue the search for a five-day-old boy whose mother made it out of the hospital, but whose son did not make it out with her.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
The Ogun State Police Command dismantled an alleged baby factory in Mowe on August 24, 2026, rescuing two pregnant women and four children and arresting six suspects, including a nurse allegedly involved in illegal deliveries and adoptions.
The most urgent unresolved issue: a newborn boy, born to a third victim just days before the raid, is still missing, and locating him is now the central focus of the ongoing investigation by the State CID in Abeokuta.
