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Mother poisons self, one-year-old baby in Lagos

The woman, who was married to a Keke rider, died after poisoning herself and her baby in the Abaranje community around the Ikotun area of Lagos.
Poison

A woman, Rejoice Ukpai, and her one-year-old child were both found dead on a bush path in Abaranje, a community in Igando/Ikotun on Tuesday, January 25th, 2022. 

Mrs Rejoice Ukpai was last seen by her husband on Monday, January 24th when she said she wanted to attend a vigil in church. She is suspected to have drunk a poisonous substance and given some of it to her baby too. The container of the poison was seen close to where their bodies were found. 

Some witnesses claimed to have seen her at about 10pm on Monday when she was in great pain. She was said to have been accosted by some residents who found out from her what she had consumed. Information AlimoshoToday gathered had it that the concerned neighbours tried to help by giving her and her baby some palm oil to drink as first aid.

Rejoice's husband, Ekene, a tricyclist, was in shock when he was called upon to identify the bodies of his wife and child. 

Ekene explained that his wife had told him that she wanted to go to church for a vigil on Monday, but later confirmed from the pastor that there was no vigil on that day: “Out of curiosity, I called the Pastor of the church to know if there was any vigil on a Monday and he said there wasn't. When I confronted her, she said she wanted to go and pay her contribution to the person coordinating it and I allowed her to go with the baby, while I went to work.

“When I returned, she was nowhere to be found. I went to where she told me she was going to but met the apartment locked.

“I called her Pastor’s wife to ask after my wife and baby, but she said she did not see them. It was the pastor that invited me to the spot where their bodies laid”, the grief-stricken husband and father said.

There was no suicide note left by the deceased and no one is aware of the reason Rejoice poisoned herself and her baby.