Grandma jailed in US for feeding baby ‘Nigerian’ way

A Nigerian woman, Oluremi Adeleye, has been convicted of murder in the United States for force-feeding a baby milk.

She was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Adeleye, 73, a live-in nanny at Prince George’s County, Maryland, was found guilty of second-degree murder, first-degree child abuse and second-degree child abuse.

The police authorities said a video recorded by a surveillance camera shows the nanny tried to feed the 8-month old baby but without success.

She then pulled the baby from her walker, removed the nipple from her bottle and forcefully fed her.

Adeleye poured “eight ounces of milk down the child’s throat in less than 30 seconds, essentially drowning her,” the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

After the baby became unresponsive, Adeleye called the baby’s father, who dialed 911 as he raced home.

The baby, Enita Salubi, was rushed to a hospital, where she died on October 26, 2016.

Adeleye testified in her own defense at her trial that she was “cup-feeding” the baby to ensure she didn’t go hungry, a custom in her home country, Nigeria.

She and her attorneys said that she did not mean to hurt the child and that Enita’s death was a “tragic accident.”

Adeleye had others testify in her defense, saying that cup-feeding — that is, pouring liquid in one’s hand to feed children when they do not want to eat but need to be fed — was common in Nigeria.

“Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to kill your child,” Oluremi said in court on the day the judgement was delivered.

In finding Adeleye guilty of all the charges against her, Mason said Adeleye lied to homicide detectives in recorded interviews about whether she unscrewed the cap of the bottle to feed the child.