The people of the Odo-Owa community in the Oke-Ero local government area of Kwara State have called for justice in the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a placenta and umbilical cord of a newly-born baby at a cottage hospital in Iloffa.
The community also called on the youths in the area to remain calm and law-abiding so that the matter could be resolved.
The Aloffa of Iloffa, Oba Joshua Adimula said though the hospital is located in Iloffa, “the victim is one of us and must be adequately protected as one of our subjects.
“We also believe that the leadership in Iloffa, especially the Aloffa-in-Council, are taking proper measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.”
Oba Adimula said the Odo-Owa-in-Council had taken it upon itself to appeal to the youths to remain calm and not take the law into their hands.
“We are doing this to avoid creating unnecessary tension between the two communities,” he said.
Oba Adimula said the community believed that the court would do justice in the case, get to the root of the matter, and sanction anybody found culpable.
A community leader in Odo-Owa, Barr. Asaholu Raphael, described the incident as “very unfortunate.”
He said since there were laid down medical procedures in hospital birth delivery which must be strictly adhered to by medical personnel, anybody found to have compromised the ethical standards should be made to face the wrath of the law.
According to him, this is to serve as a deterrent to other would-be offenders and curb future occurrences.
He described the people of Odo-Owa as peace-loving and patriotic, saying the community’s name must always be protected.
“We are peace-loving, and anything that can tarnish the community’s name and project us to the outside in bad light must be tackled adequately.
“That’s why we are calling for justice in this case to curb its future occurrence,” he said.
LEADERSHIP reports that there had been disquiet in the neighbouring communities of Odo-Owa and Iloffa over the alleged disappearance of the umbilical cord and placenta of a new baby by one Mrs Williams at Government Cottage Hospital in Iloffa.
