Borno State Police Command has intercepted an Igbo woman, who gave her name simply as Mrs. Nkwenwu, for allegedly transporting two Kanuri children suspected to have been kidnapped. She was also with a two year old baby girl.
Borno State Police spokesman, ASP Sani Kamilu Muhammed, who confirmed the story today, August 6, said that Mrs. Nwenwu was arrested with the children on her way from Maiduguri, Borno State to Abuja.
A Commercial driver operating on the Abuja route at the motor park where the woman was arrested, Danjuma Mohammed, told newsmen that the woman had arrived the Borno express motor park along with three children: two males and a baby girl, strapped on her back, late Thursday evening on her way to Abuja.
The driver said that because it was late, she requested for accommodation in the motor park to spend the night.
Mohammed said that on Friday morning, members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) working in the park noticed the suspicious attitude of the woman and promptly arrested her.
A member of CJTf at the motor park, Mallam Bukar, said: “the woman solicited for accommodation to spent the night in the park and after undergoing interrogations by security and surveillance officials they gave her a room where she and the children slept.
“When one of children was hungry and began screaming for food, she rushed him to a nearby restaurant where some women noticed that the child crying bear Kanuri tribal marks on his face and became suspicious about the woman.
“It was one of the women who asked the child in Kanuri dialect and the boy revealed that the woman picked him at the popular Post Office roundabout and promised to buy him slippers. She called to inform me that an Igbo woman with suspicious signs brought a Kanuri boy (Almajiri) crying for food in her shop.
“I went straight to the restaurant and met the boy eating while she returned to the main wall of the park where she kept the remaining children. When she returned, I approached her to know the relationship with the child and she claimed that the children belong to her elder sister who is also going to travel alongside with them to Abuja. We waited for hours for the acclaimed sister but she did not show up and we reported to the police who moved her to the Metro Police Station.”
