An Ekiti State High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti has sentenced a 37-year-old woman, Deborah Ayeni, to 14 years in prison for stealing a newborn baby, while declaring her a fugitive after she failed to appear before the court during her trial.
Justice Lekan Olatawura handed down the sentence on Tuesday in absentia after Ayeni’s sureties failed to produce her in court despite the prosecution having called four witnesses in the case.
The judge subsequently directed the court registrar to transmit the judgment and a letter to the Comptroller-General of Customs, the Nigeria Police and the media, formally declaring Ayeni wanted as a fugitive and calling for her arrest.
Olatawura further ruled that the 14-year prison term would take effect from the day Ayeni is apprehended.
The court also sentenced Ayeni’s two sureties, including her father, Babatope Ebenezer Ayeni, to six months’ imprisonment each for failing to produce the defendant and pay the prescribed recognisance fees, pursuant to the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Ekiti State, 2014 (as amended).
The judge had previously revoked Ayeni’s bail after she repeatedly failed to appear in court to answer the charge against her.
The convict was initially arraigned on September 1, 2025, when she pleaded not guilty to a one-count charge of child stealing.
According to the prosecutor, Ibironke Odetola, Ayeni allegedly stole a newborn baby belonging to Mustapher Aliu and his wife, Falmata, in Ado-Ekiti on August 4, 2025, with the intention of depriving the couple of their child.
Odetola told the court that Ayeni was granted bail after her arrest and detention at the Correctional Centre in Ado-Ekiti. The bail was fixed at N2 million, with two sureties required to provide recognisance in the same amount.
The prosecutor explained that the prosecution had called four witnesses during the proceedings. She said Ayeni disappeared while the third witness was being presented, after allegedly informing her lawyer, Mr Stephen Ademuagun, that she had been kidnapped along the road.
According to Odetola, Ayeni subsequently stopped attending court, while her father, who was one of the sureties, appeared on one occasion. She said he told the court that his daughter was at home when the judge questioned him about her whereabouts.
Giving the court further details of the circumstances surrounding the alleged offence, Odetola said Ayeni had claimed to have suffered a miscarriage around May 2025. She allegedly concealed the loss from her husband, who lives abroad, and falsely told him that she was expecting to give birth.
“She invited her husband to come back to Nigeria for her delivery and deceived him with clothes wrapped around her stomach to feign the existence of a pregnancy.
“She thereafter went to a hospital in Okeyinmi area of Ado-Ekiti, and stole the said baby from the complainants.
“She thereafter went to a hospital in Okeyinmi area of Ado-Ekiti, and stole the said baby from the complainants.
“She then gave the baby to a midwife for care after lying to her husband that she had buried the placenta upon questioning.
“It was the midwife who noticed the anomalies in her activities that informed the police, and she was promptly arrested,”she said.
Odetola further disclosed that the police subsequently rescued the stolen child alive. She said the offence for which Ayeni was convicted contravened Section 292 of the Criminal Law of Ekiti, 2021.
