Kidnapping in Nigeria is really becoming rampant!
15-year-old Rita Clement has been missing ever since she left for her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Agidingbi, Ikeja, last Thursday, March 10th.
PUNCH reports that the girl was abducted by unknown persons after she left home by 5.30am for the examination centre, but at 5pm, she sent a text message to her mother’s phone.
“Mummy, they took my phone and beat me up inside the bus. Mummy, I don’t know where they took me to. They made me sleep and said they will kill me if I ran,” the text message said. “Someone gave me my phone, saying I must return it before they came back. Mummy, please save me, please.”
The family members reported the case to the police officers at Ojodu Police Division and had since been transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja.
“Rita (Clement) finished from a college on Aina Street in the Ojodu area. She just concluded her SSCE; we then enrolled her for the UTME. Her father lives in Enugu,” her uncle Emeka Orazulike told PUNCH.
“The examinations board gave her that Thursday, by 6.30am, to sit for her exam. She was to sit at a centre in the Agidingbi area. On that day, as I was preparing for work around 6am, she met and told me that she was set to leave for the venue.
“I gave her N1,000 when she told me the centre was at Agidingbi. She would use only N100 for transport. I then left for work,” Orazulike continued.
“As I was coming back around 6.30pm, her mother called that she forwarded a message to my telephone. I then checked my phone and saw the scary message. I first went to the Area F Command, Ikeja, and was about making a statement when the Area Commander directed me to the Ojodu Police Division. We reported the matter on Friday at Ojodu, and the police there radioed other stations.”
Her uncle said he dialed her number, it rang all through Thursday and was not picked up. By Friday, it was switched off.
“The abductors might have whisked her away in the bus she boarded on that morning,” he uncle said. “She was used to going out. When she wrote her WAEC, her centre was at Giwa Oke-Aro, Agbado. She went there with her friends.
“That was why when she mentioned that she was going to Agidingbi for the UTME, I did not nurse any fear because it was just two bus stops from our area. If we knew that anything would happen, I would have taken her there myself,” he added.
PUNCH reports that the SARS commander assured the family she would be rescued. Meanwhile, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, is yet to comment on the case.
Source: PUNCH
