A suspected kidnapper, one Samuel Olabanji, has been arrested by the police in Lagos state and charged to court for allegedly stealing a two-year-old boy, Rokeeb Akinwale, while he was returning from an Arabic school on Tunkarimu Street, in the Ajegunle area of the state.
The victim was said to have gone to the school on February 25 in company of a neighbor, 10-year-old Shukra who had strapped him to her back while returning home around 6pm.
Olabanji reportedly waylaid Shukra by the roadside and snatched the boy from her back.
The abduction was reported at the Ajegunle Police Division the same day by Rokeeb’s mother, Mrs. Sadiat Akinwale, after searching for him to no avail.
On February 29, the suspect and three men were said to have returned to the area for another operation when he was caught while the others escaped.
An irate mob beat him up before the police came to his rescue.
According to the police, Olabanji had confessed to the crime and a manhunt had been launched for the fleeing members of the gang, The Punch reports.
The 20-year-old suspect, who hails from Kwara State, told the police that he and his accomplices snatched a child from a girl and had stolen one other baby in the Ajegunle area earlier in February.
He said, “I am a secondary school leaver. Presently, I don’t have any job. I am into kidnapping with Sunday, Bidemi and Tunde. We came to Ajegunle sometime in February and kidnapped two kids. We took them to one Rasheed, who lives in Ipaja Ayobo and he paid us for the children.
“On February 29, we came back to Ajegunle to steal another baby, but I was caught while others escaped,” he added.
The victim’s mother, Sadiat, speaking on the incident said her child was yet to be found but believes that her son would “be protected at his captors’ den and be reunited safely with his family.”
She said, “That was not the first time Shukra would take him to the school. She said Rokeeb was crying when a man approached her. He took him from her back, claiming that he wanted to pacify him. Before she knew, the man had disappeared. We have searched for him. I have faith in God that he will come back to us.”
A police prosecutor, Sergeant Francisca Okere, brought Olabanji before an Apapa Magsitrate’s Court on two counts of child stealing on Thursday.
The charges read, “That you, Samuel Olabanji and others at large in February 2016, on Tunkarimu Street, Ajegunle Apapa, in the Apapa Magisterial District, did conspire among yourselves to commit felony to wit: child stealing.”
The prosecutor said the offence is punishable under sections 275 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011.
The accused pleaded guilty to the charges.
The magistrate, Mrs. A.O. Adegbite, subsequently adjourned hearing till March 14, 2016.
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