If you watched Newsline on NTA in the 1990s, you’d be conversant with the girl dubbed “Miracle Baby” after 3 women claimed they were her biological mothers.
At the time, Abike Dabiri (now Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa) investigated the story to get to the root after a woman in her mid-60s (Mother 1), named Alhaja Wuraola Abayomi, appeared on Newsline one Sunday night in 1995 with her “baby” to claim she gave birth in her old age.
Another woman, named Folashade Adeyemi (Mother 2), while watching the show, suspected the child was hers because she had seen the woman in the hospital in 1994 when she went to deliver her twins and the woman wasn’t pregnant at the time. Mother 2 had lost both children during delivery but she was never allowed to see her children’s remains, despite asking the midwife to allow her to see her children’s bodies.
Mother 2 went public and an investigation began. During the investigation, a 3rd woman named Kikelomo Obikoya surfaced, claiming the child as hers. She said she had a baby but was told by the same midwife who handled Mother 2’s case that her child had died.
Tests revealed that Mother 3 was the child’s biological mother but Mother 2 refused to accept the result of the test and the case went to court. Another set of tests were done and Mother 3 was still revealed as the biological mother.
It was discovered that the child, now known as Mary Obikoya, was born in December 1994 and was sold in 1995. Afterwards, the midwife, Mrs Esther Kubari was charged to court while the child was later awarded a scholarship by Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
Today, a Twitter user reached out to Dabiri-Erewa to ask about Mary.
The Twitter user wrote: “@abikedabiri Where is Mary Obikoya? A girl you gave hope has today disappeared from our collective national conscience. The last we heard, she was being abused by an evidently unstable mother. If the government could not protect her, we hoped you could. Where is she?”
And Dabiri-Erewa responded: “She just graduated. On my scholarship. She will soon proceed for her NYSC.”
