How doctor stole one of my twins during birth, Abuja housewife narrates

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When 32-year-old Mrs. Eunice Bright Ekwok learned she was expecting twins at her prenatal checkup at Divine Rain Maternity Clinic in April 2021, her happiness was unbridled.

She just took a moment to think about how she would manage to raise the unborn children with her husband, Bartholomew Bright Ekwok, who did not have a steady work.

The doctor, Timothy Zeje, openly refused Mrs. Ekwok’s request for a copy of the scan results to take home after she was informed of her fate. He told her that the hospital’s policy prohibited it and maintained that the results could only be placed in her file.

When she got home, she told her husband what the doctor had told her in the hospital. The husband initially asked the wife to show the scan results because he wanted proof of what he had just heard.

The 34-year-old wanted to rush to the private medical facility to meet the doctor for an explanation, but she was unable to do so and instead informed her husband of the hospital’s rules. However, he had to pause his action after his wife insisted that pursuing the scan result was not required.

Later, they prayed over the doctor’s revelation and accepted their fate. As a result, Mrs. Ekwok began getting ready for the day of her delivery.

Every time she visited the hospital in the Sauka neighborhood of Abuja for a follow-up check, the expectant twin mother would tell the doctor how pleased she was with the information he had previously given her regarding the status of her pregnancy.

She had no desire to unintentionally give birth to her twins to the doctor who had been married for years without having a kid together. Prior to the hospital’s plans, he informed Mrs. Ekwok that her wife was expecting and that she might have gotten pregnant at the same time as her.

Despite being unconscious, Mrs. Ekwok gave birth to her baby via caesarean section in the hospital when the pregnancy was due.

Only the doctor and the hospital’s nurses were present in the labor room during the session; neither her spouse nor any of her family members were.

The middle-aged woman described the heartbreaking event, saying that she was given only one kid instead of two because she was carrying twins a few hours after she regained consciousness. The doctor informed her that the other twin had not survived birth when she asked to see her second child.

“I told the doctor that I would like just to see how the dead child look like or his bones but he refused, They told me that my baby is dead and scattered. Okay, where are the pieces and where are the bones? I asked but they couldn’t give me an explanation. Instead, they were saying why would I not be grateful for the one that survived birth and rather be asking for another baby when we were a poor couple and could barely take care of the one we have. We let go the issue at the time,” she said, sobbing.

Mrs. Ekwok asked to see her file when she returned to the hospital to check on her wound from the cesarean section, but she was informed that it had been burned, despite the fact that she could see a stack of patient files in one of the offices.

“When I told them I wanted to see where it was burnt and the ashes since they claimed it was just few days they did it, they asked me to go behind the building and when I got there, there was nothing suggesting that they had burnt anything. I returned to ask them why should it be only my file they would burn out of the many others in tne hospital? They couldn’t say anything.

One devoted day, Mrs. Ekwok went to a neighboring general hospital for a routine immunization, and she met her purported kid in someone’s care. God would then step in to allow the couple to meet one of their alleged lost twin sons.

She clarified that on her way home from the hospital where she had given birth, she noticed the wife of the attending physician entering the building to receive an immunization.

When she went to greet her, Mrs. Ekwok noticed that the infant the doctor had brought looked exactly like her own child—complete with dreadlock! Other than their attire, she was unable to distinguish between her child and the one the doctor’s wife had brought in for vaccinations.

Mrs. Ekwok, shocked, stopped and thought. She recalled that the woman’s husband owned the hospital where she had given birth. She also remembered that, despite having twins, she had only seen one kid after giving birth. Even yet, she was informed that the other child was “scattered” during birth. She started to wonder more about the infant in the doctor’s wife’s hand.

“That faithful day, I went for immunization at AMAC Hospital at Besan. After they gave my baby the injection, I wanted to go home,so I was trying to put my baby on my back and immediately saw the wife of the doctor where I gave birth coming into the hospital with one of her brothers. They were bringing their children for immunization. When I saw the baby they brought, I was like, what is happening here? “

“The baby in my hand looked exactly like the one in their hand. I said ‘I’m so confused.’ I didn’t even know what to do again,so I greeted them and she sat down. And since it was a heat period, I asked her to remove the baby’s cap because the heat was too much. She removed the cap,I became confused the more because of the spitting semblance of the child and my baby. They have same leg, same face, same dada (dreadlock, same everything. I said ‘what is going on here’ to myself. I now concluded that my earlier intuition that my twin baby was taken away at birth and not dead as told by the doctor,”she narrated.

However, Mrs. Ekwok chose a backup plan rather than causing a stir by telling everyone at the vaccination center that she had located her lost child. She would learn the address of the couple who had her “twin baby” and start going there frequently.

How could she perform it flawlessly? After she told her spouse, they came up with a strategy. She then brought two of her wrappers (clothes) to the doctor’s house, claiming that their financial situation had not been good, and pleaded with them to purchase the material from her in order to support her family.

Mrs Ekwok became a regular visitor to the doctor’s house, her host was unaware of her guest’s quest to learn the truth about their purported child.

However, in multiple attempts to learn more about the child’s origin, she and her husband were taken to police stations, detained, taken to court, sent to prison, and even publicly tortured while being accused of trying to steal a child. This is when peace started to elude the Ekwoks.

They insisted on conducting a DNA test to support their claims to the child’s parenthood in every location they were taken to. However, the police allegedly rejected their request outright, allegedly under the influence of the doctor and his wife, and instead attempted to prosecute them for theft.

“Insisting that the child who is over two years now is theirs,the couple,called on authorities and the public to intervene so their request for a DNA can be conducted for the child in contention.

The accuser, Mrs. Ekwok, contacted the doctor to discuss the claim, but the doctor declined, stating that the case was already under police investigation and had already been taken to court.

For further information, he advised ZINGTIE to contact the Force Intelligence Department in Abuja.

“The case is already being handled by the police and it has been taken to court. If you have to investigate more about the matter, the best place to go is the Force CID,” he said.

Even though the accusation was made more than a year ago, the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, an umbrella organization for active medical professionals, stated that it had not been properly brought to their notice.

Dr. Bature Mannir, the spokesperson for the NMA’s Abuja chapter, told ZINGTIE that he had recently learned about it and asked for more time to find out from the chairmen whether or not he had been contacted about the issue. However, he had not responded at the time this report was filed.

Think Cross River demands justice and declares that no state son will be taken by anyone.

In response, Think Cross River, a project that seeks to promote harmony, accountability, and group ownership among Cross River residents, has demanded that justice be served.

In order to secure the child’s return to his purported birth parents, the group pledged to see the matter through to its conclusion.

No child of the state’s origin would be permitted to be taken away by anyone under any pretense, according to Papa Dom Cklamz Enamhe, the founder of Think Cross River, who spoke to Vanguard.

Enamhe, the convener of Northern Cross River’s Who is Who platform, stated: Mr. Bartholomew Bright-Ekwok is from Cross River State. We just got to know about the story and we have moved in.”

The elder statesman said:”We will not allow any child of Cross River extraction go out. We will not stand and watch anybody intimidate any Cross Riverian. I have briefed the governor and he is on his foot on this. The senators from Cross River State extraction are all on the same case.

“No one child of Cross River extraction will be taken anywhere. We will get back the child. We will have DNA. We will go to court. We will do the right things. We, as a community, have resolved that this matter will be sorted out properly.

“Our child will return to the immediate family and will be back home. Poverty is not a crime. No Nigerian has a right to intimidate anybody because he is richer or because by any means, he is a professional.

“If I come to your hospital to give birth, I didn’t commit a crime. If you say one of the twins was missing or dead, where are the features? And we are taking two years and 11 months and you are still ignoring just a DNA test? We will afford it. We can afford it.
We will go through the processes.”

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