Incest: Baby Samuel up for adoption

Incest: Baby Samuel up for adoption

Written by VANGUARD   
Monday, 27 October 2008
Baby Samuel, the two-month-old love child born out of an incestuous relationship between a randy father and his 16-year-old daughter in Ibadan, is now up for adoption.
Mr Kehinde Akinyemi,  Principal Social Welfare Officer at the Oyo State Social Welfare Board, said that a  Juvenile Court had given the go-ahead for Samuel's adoption.
Akinyemi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan that the board was now searching for “a reliable person who would take proper care of  Samuel in view of the special circumstances surrounding his birth.
“It is on the basis of the circumstances of his birth that the board is trying to place him in a good family to look after him, he said.
Akinyemi ruled out the possibility of Samuel being reared by his parents, pointing out that it was an abomination for a father to impregnate his daughter.
“Such a child cannot be allowed to be brought up in that family or even in the environment.
“We are hoping to get one person among the more 100 persons who had shown interest in Samuels adoption, Akinyemi told NAN .
He said the person who would adopt Samuel would have to do so on a humanitarian basis and must be someone who understood the circumstances of his birth.
“For a person to adopt a child, he must know his genesis, he said.
Akinyemi said that Samuel’s mother, who also happened to be his aunt (name withheld), was fast recuperating as she was hospitalised shortly after giving birth him.
He said that plan was under way to rehabilitate her and make her self- reliant.
According to him, she voluntarily submitted Samuel to the  Social Welfare Board.
He said that in social welfare, the law allows   voluntarily submission? of children by their parents to the state.
Akinyemi said that Samuel was healthy and currently being looked after in one of the government orphanages in Ibadan .
He attributed the lack of adequate enlightenment and information as factors responsible for the increasing rate of child abandonment and child abuse in the country.
NAN reports that the incestuous father, Olaolu Adeleke, has been remanded at the Agodi Prisons on the order of an Ibadan Chief Magistrate’s Court, trying him for incest.