A teenage girl on Wednesday gave birth to a baby and quickly buried her alive in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
The girl, identified as Bright, 18, according to Premium Times report, apparently did not want the baby after giving birth, and had to bury her in a shallow grave she dug in a garden inside a sprawling compound in Ifa Ikot Okpon community, Uyo Local Government Area.
She lives with her parents in a rented house inside the compound.
She told Premium Times that she did not know she was pregnant until the moment she gave birth. But from what her father, Okon Ekpenyong and others, who are familiar with the incident, said, it appears she lied.
‘I saw a baby coming out of my body. My body was paining me. All of a sudden, I now fell down here (pointing at the garden where she buried the baby), I saw a baby coming out of my body. I started crying,” she narrated tearfully.
“The baby was dead. I was unconscious. I dug a small place to keep the baby until my mother comes back, so I can show her,” she added.
“Why didn’t you take the baby inside the house, is that a place where a baby should be kept?” Premium Times asked Bright.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she responded.
Can you sleep there, at that place?
“I was in shock when I gave birth,” she responded, again. “There was no one to tell me what to do.”
In the garden where the baby was buried, there was a white piece of cloth stained with blood discarded at the edge of the tiny grave. Near it, there was a leaf from a plantain tree, which Bright had used to cover the baby while inside the grave.
Two people who witnessed the incident faulted Bright’s claim that the baby was already dead before she buried it.
A co-tenant in the compound, Matthew, said the baby was still alive before Bright buried it.
“The baby was crying,” he said.
Besides, Matthew said Bright dug the grave a previous day, not on the day she gave birth.
