PHOTOS: BABY FACTORY FULL STORY: Owner Is Real Billionaire, Lives In Luxury
The signboard of the ‘hospital’ |
James Ezuma, a medical doctor nabbed by the police in Owerri,
Imo State, for operating baby factories, is the face of child
trafficking in Nigeria.
The glassy signpost with blue, white and black lettering promises
would-be visitors succour. Its delicate frame announces to the public
the presence of a private hospital. Near this board is another with less
aesthetic appeal on a lonely street off Egbu Road, in Owerri
metropolis, which announces to the vulnerable, a place of refuge.
The wordings on this board, strong enough to comfort even the most
disheartened, have been revealed as a decoy to perpetrate evil. The
place is “Ezuma Women and Children Rights Protection Initiative. FG
Approved NGO Homeless Babies Home,” which, until last month, was the
epicentre of child trafficking, with a baby production regime, as if in
an industrial factory, in full swing.
At the peak of his career, Dr. James Ezuma, who claims to have
studied at the University of Jos, was the poster child of successful
medical practice. His vast empire, including real estate, posh
automobiles and women, advertised him as a man who attained success
through dedicated commitment to his profession.
His physical wealth was complemented by a long list of clientele and
friends in political and business circles. This probably explains why,
with impunity, he could operate his purported hospital and
Non-Governmental Organisation, NGO, in a building for which proper
building permit was never obtained.
Yet, he was there for many years without the concerned officials
raising eyebrows. For the sheer size of his wealth, the undiscerning
public held him in awe. The church bestowed a knighthood on him for his
commitment to charity! This was before the police flashed their
detective klieg lights on his activities.
Ezuma: Serial polygamist with his third wife |
What they saw however, negates the very essence of the medical guild.
In Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State where Ezuma operated
from before he was declared wanted, the 65-year-old drew respect and
fear in nearly equal proportions. His five-storey ‘hospital and charity
home’ on 101 Okigwe Road, Aba, was frequented by high-heeled guests and
‘patients’ who visited mostly at night in sleek automobiles.
Their purpose: to purchase a child. The cost of land in the eternally
busy Okigwe Road is estimated at N10 million per plot. Sources say the
magnificent edifice may have been erected on over five plots of land.
Neighbours and passers-by who dared prey into his activities in this
fortress suffered losses as a result.
A former associate of his told this magazine that any medical
practitioner, who challenged his baby dealer’s reptilian practices,
suffered either physical harm or had his clinic shut down. His network
of friends, some believed to be in privileged positions of government,
ensured that he never suffered harassments.
And when he did, they made escape routes available to him. Competent
sources in the police force say he had been detained by the police but
on such occasions, he was let off the hook.
Deception: The signboard contravened what happened in the ‘home’ |
The building which has been demolished by the Abia State government
following its owner’s arrest in Owerri, was a den where innocent
children were herded as raw material for his baby production factory.
Here, Ezuma, working in tandem with his network of collaborators,
brought girls, some pregnant, claiming to help provide anti- and
post-natal services to them.
Thereafter, the impostor claimed he offered them humanitarian
services such as rehabilitating the teenage girls, while offering the
children out on adoption. The inside of his so-called hospital before it
was pulled down, fared even less than a dispensary.
With a promise of good life and health care cover for the unborn
child, the girls were coerced to give up their children for pittance,
sometimes as low as N50,000 to N200,000. The methods of harvesting the
babies, this magazine learnt, were debasing of the ethics of
gynaecological practice. Using induced labour and crude delivery
methods, Ezuma reportedly harvested even unripe pregnancies to satisfy
his patrons.
Although he made little noise about his sleight-of-the hand child
production prowess in public, Ezuma was the definition of impudence.
Following several half-spirited battles by the police with him in Abia
State, Ezuma, who hails from Ndiokeke Ndiakunwata, Arondizuogu, Ideato
North LGA, Imo State, fled homewards. Owerri was where he relocated his
lair and operational headquarters.
Decrepit environment where the pregnant girls lived |
Ezuma’s non-governmental organisation, sited on a virgin expanse of
land was work-in-progress. With a storey building in advanced stage of
completion, the multi-acre plot is littered with materials procured for
building projects. On the left entrance to the facility is a small
wooden house used for a church. The church previously had a land-related
squabble with the doctor.
The main building that housed his family served as the ‘consulting’
as well as ‘delivery’ wards of the hospital. The rest of the vast
landmass is used for the cultivation of cassava, which separates the
administrative area from the girls’ or patients’ ward. The environment
where the innocent girls lived froths with weeds and dirt. The living
conditions were as decrepit as the character of the man who ran the
home.
Eight girls were confined in each of the two rooms, with neither
ventilation nor permanent windows and doors. Gloom surrounds the
ambience. It was in the quietude that pervades the place that the Ambush
Squad of the Imo State Police Command nabbed him pants down, setting
free 16 innocent girls, many of them at various stages of pregnancy.
Conservative estimates indicate that Ezuma’s land in Owerri values at
hundreds of millions of naira. The structures at several stages of
completion in the compound are evaluated at over N20 million. His deep
pocket also reflected in his wealth. And he relished the comfort. Among
the vehicles recovered from him were: a Jaguar, two Chrysler cars, a
Lincoln Navigator, a Honda Jeep, a Nissan Quest, a Pathfinder Sports
Utility Vehicle and three unidentified others.
The Imo State Police Commissioner, Muhammad Musa Katsina, said: “Have
you seen Ezuma’s vehicles? When you see them, you will know the value
of these vehicles. For goodness sake, in a disciplined country like
Nigeria, how can somebody have 10 exotic cars without any single
documentation? With impunity, they were all parked there, without a
single documentation.”
Ezuma’s libertine inclinations are not limited to pecuniary benefits.
His philandering is also legendary. “His marriage to his first wife
failed sometime ago. The woman, a lawyer, left him because of his
criminal tendencies which she condemned. The one he lived with until he
was caught was actually their house-help. And he’s got other
concubines,” a source who knew him closely said. In his world, beautiful
women are complemented by lush automobiles!
Nkrumah Bankong-Obi Apart from indulgence in child trafficking, the
police allegedly found an unregistered firearm in his home. This forms a
fraction of the 18-count charges leveled against him in court. This
adds up to the fact that his medical licence was seized by the Nigerian
Medical Association, NMA, for improper conduct.
In the real sense of the word, Ezuma was not operating a hospital. In
the words of Katsina: “You don’t need to be a medical doctor to know
what qualities a place should have to be a hospital. Here is a man who
is in his 60s who calls himself a medical doctor and said: Dr. Ezuma
Private Hospital. What is the definition of a hospital?
When you go inside, it was the same doctor that was the chief medical
director, he was the matron, the consultant gynaecologist. His wife who
had never seen the four walls of any health institution is a consultant
gynaecologist. Ezuma trained her in his hospital, trained her in his
university, of which he is the provost of the college of medicine; he is
everything.
And yet, after graduating his wife, she came out without a
certificate. Yet she was the one delivering babies. In the same
hospital, ask them, where are the beddings, where is the labour room?
Find out if you can get any injectable material. Even ordinary iodine or
panadol is not there. It was a crude way of delivery.”
Katsina described Ezuma as an animal in human form, too dangerous to mankind.
Nkrumah Bankong-Obi/South-east, Nigeria, PM News
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