MY BABY HAS TURNED ME INTO A CELEBRITY - OAU STUDENT WHO GAVE BIRTH IN THE TOILET SPEAKS

   

Oyinlola Rotimi is the 22-year-old 400level student of Agriculture Extension and Rural Sociology at Obafemi Awolowo University, who gave birth in the toilet in her hostel and accused of trying to flush the baby. Rotimi and the baby were discharged from the hospital on Friday, and she seems to be taking oride in the publicity her baby has brought her. She has narrated her own side of the story. Read below;

‘God has the best plan for me’

“Why would I flush or kill my baby after going through the pains of carrying him for about good nine months? I am not heartless and I thank God for my life and the safe delivery. I know God has the best plan for me and my baby. I seriously appreciate the cleaners for their assistance because I got here (health centre) before I understood everything that happened to me. I am happy that I am alive and my baby is alive too. I’m also using this opportunity to thank the VC, the doctors and nurses, my lecturers and everybody because they all stood by me. They all became my father, my mother and everything to me.

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“Right now, I can call myself a celebrity and definitely I’m going to be greater than a celebrity. My baby too is going to be great. Look at the circumstance that surrounds his birth, just some days old, he is already all over in the news around the world and everybody is happy to see him or hear about his story.  He will surely go beyond where I am now. He has turned me into a kind of celebrity. ”

Circumstances surrounding the baby’s birth

“I was purging all through the night and I had no idea of what labour pain was all about. Actually, I was feeling pressed, I can’t call it a labour pain because I was visiting the toilet all through the night till that morning. I just went to the toilet to go and purge when I noticed something just came out of me which I found out was the baby. The baby entered  the closet. I was just there shouting, bleeding and people who saw the blood came out to help me  alongside the baby.

“I was really scared! I was not expecting a baby. I went to the toilet but seeing a baby was terrifying because I was not expecting him or her to come out yet. It is absolutely not true that I took to my heels when people came to help me. It happened in Moremi Hall toilet and the toilet is a public one where everybody takes their bath, fetch water and clean up. So, some people were around fetching water, having their bath as usual, while I was in the toilet planning to defecate. My friend called the cleaner for help because she was an elderly woman. I was very scared and people around too couldn’t help because we are all young female students. The cleaner later helped to carry the baby out and brought it to the Health Centre along with me.”

Her plan for the baby

“I will continue to keep him more handsome, healthier and nurture him to attain greater height in life. But what he will become later in life is not for me to decide but he will definitely become what God wants him to become. I will just try to train him in God’s way and I am sure His (God) plan for his life will be realised.”

The bean cake she ate deceived her – CSO

According to the institution’s Chief Security Officer, Mr. Paul Ogidi, Rotimi thought she had stomach upset instead of labour pains because of the bean cake she took before going to bed.

“She got to campus late at night on Tuesday and  it was learnt that she could not immediately get herself something to eat but later resolved to buy beans cake within the campus. After eating the snack, she complained severely of running stomach, urinated and defecated at regular intervals.

“She felt her stomach disorder was caused by the bean cake that she took the previous night – not knowing it was labour pains.”

Culled for PUNCH