If only he had known, 57-year old Baba Abira would have run the day he was called to fill in for a retiring colleague on the night shift at the Obstetrics department at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).
Four days after returning from leave, he got involved in a messy missing baby saga.
Speaking in twi, he said, "I saw a box in the rubbish which I suspected was an aborted foetus. It was my duty to clear all waste so I disposed it off with no bad motive", he said - breaking his silence in the media in an interview with Nhyira News’ Ohemeng Tawiah.
The hospital attendant was arrested barely a week on his return after the story broke that Suweiba wants her baby allegedly stillborn -whether full body or in disfigured pieces.
He was confronted by authorities to produce the stillborn babies he allegedly took. And when he couldn't find what he called a box of aborted foetus, he was handed over to the Police.
The man's life has been thrown out of order. He still looks shell-shocked.
Buried away, far from any social significance, Baba Abira's life has been dug out as the focal point of a trending missing babies saga at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. The story has gripped the attention of the nation.
The Chief Imam wants a presidential intervention. The family of the distraught mother is threatening court action and the Health Ministry has issued deadlines for an official report on the matter.
Baba Abira is in the center of great unsettling attention.
His life, decorated with two wives, four children and 32 years of spotless service at KATH, has now been called into question despite being regarded as hardworking honest employee with no record of reprimand.
But he would have to blame himself for giving two different accounts of the story. Instead, Baba Abira accuses his fears for a fumbling performance at the Kumasi Circuit Court.
"Initially I told them I carried one box, but a got confused and afraid and later said I took three", he said.
The criminal value of his inconsistent story is subject to the ongoing court hearing. Would it be inconsequential? The courts will decide.
Is Baba a part of a baby-stealing syndicate?
An attractive theory for the victims and angry sections of the public frustrated by the too many stories of lax administration at KATH.
But a lonely Baba swears he is too afraid to do anything as dastardly as that. In over three decades of service, even an idle tablet of paracetamol in the ward is safe in his presence.
He wants his appearance, the soul under his eyes and his life to be his testimony of innocence.
Born in 1957, Ghana's year of freedom, he is battling to gain his freedom and go back to his once unnoticed, unfancied and unscruntized life.
Source: myjoyonline.com
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