- Ruth Auta, a Nigerian nurse based in the United Kingdom was jailed for neglecting her 10-week-old baby who died while she was at work
- She had lied about not neglecting her son but was charged when the police found CCTV footage of her leaving and entering her accommodation without her son
- Auta was arrested when she was trying to flee to Nigeria on a one-way ticket
- Nigerians reacted, many expressed anger at the news, and others wondered why she wasn’t on maternity leave and where the father of the baby was
One Nigerian woman working as a nurse in the United Kingdom, Ruth Auta, has been sentenced to three years in prison over the death of her 10-week-old baby, Joshua Akerele, whom she neglected for eight hours.
Auta had left her baby alone at the nurses’ accommodation for eight hours and she was at work when the baby died.
According to Daily Mail, the 28-year-old abandoned her baby for eight hours to work her shift on December 20, 2022. When she returned home at the end of her shift, she met him “lifeless” in his cot and called for help.
She dialled 999 and told the emergency operators that her son had stopped breathing. Unfortunately, he was pronounced dead and the test results showed he had died from “overheating due to the layers of clothing and bedding he was wrapped in.”
The aggrieved mother had lied to the police saying she had taken him from her nanny after work, fed him, and fallen asleep next to him.
Auta claimed to have woken up and found him unresponsive but was charged after the police found CCTV footage of her leaving and entering her accommodation without her baby on the day of the incident.
The police also found text messages in which she urged her nanny to lie that she had looked after Joshua on that day.
“Auta was charged with cruelty to a child and pleaded guilty at Manchester Magistrates' court on May 24, 2024 with her case adjourned by a month for sentence.
On June 6, the nurse who worked at Royal Bolton Hospital tried to flee the country. But she was detained at Gatwick while attempting to board the flight to her native Nigeria, having purchased a one-way ticket.
Auta was sentenced to three years in jail when she appeared at Bolton Crown Court on Tuesday, September 10,” Daily Mail reported.
Nigerians react to Auta’s negligence
Many Nigerians expressed their anger at the single mother who was careless with her baby. A few people believe that she is not a good mother and deserves to be punished for her crime. While some people sympathised with her over the death of her baby and how she has to grieve in prison, others wondered why she was working when her baby was only 10 weeks old when she should have been on maternity leave. A few concerned people asked about the father of the baby and why he wasn’t around to mind the child.
Here are some of the comments:
@davidoghe posted: “I read the full details and I was furiously madt, is it the money or what, how can you leave a child of 10 weeks alone and go for 8hrs shift and you are suppose to be a nurse that cares about people's life. The fact that she lied about it after finding before the cops make it even bad. She want to to run back to Nigeria before she was caught at the airport. These are the mothers of this generation.”
@espeezeal posted: “Modern day women do more harm to children than Good. Women are supposed to be raising kids at home not neglecting a 10 months old. If your independence and career is so important, close your legs. Having kids you'll raise alone as a single mother is the slavery that feminism sold to women and they gullibly bought it 🤦♂️”
@Chisomxoxo_ posted: “Where’s maternity leave in all of these? No husband or no partner? Who impregnated her? Was she having postpartum depression coupled with the stress of taking care of a a child alone together with her job? A lot of questions to ascertain why she did that.”
@muheediva01 posted: “She lost her child, lost her job and still have to serve jail time 💔 so sorry for her.”
@dammygtnet posted: “No matter how you see it, she is not a good mother. Yes, we all want money but not at the detrimental of ourselves.”
@revelationrabbi posted: “Stay in Nigeria! Stop letting jápa influencers deceive you. If you can raise the money to travel, then you know how to make money.”
@eblaze_j posted: “The question is where is her husband? For her to have a 10-week-old bday, there must be a father.”
@OchezePort48170 posted: “What a tragic story 💔. But where is the baby's father in all this? Look at the consequences of societal pressure on this woman. In a relationship that’s supposed to be 50/50, she ended up losing her baby, her license, and still got sentenced—triple trauma 💔💔💔.”
@OchezePort48170 posted: “Women were never meant to handle everything alone. Raising a family is a team effort, but feminism has convinced many women otherwise. If women tried balancing family life with a man’s support while working, it could be fair.But many have been persuaded that they don’t need a man.”
UK Court jails 4 Nigerians over mass production of fake marriage certificates
Meanwhile, TheRadar earlier reported that four Nigerians were jailed for producing more than 2,000 counterfeit marriage certificates used to enable unlawful entry into the United Kingdom.
The Home Office reported that the four individuals were members of a criminal organisation that submitted fraudulent EU Settlement Scheme applications for Nigerian nationals from 2019 to 2023.