Kogi man narrates how wife, two children were kidnapped, cries out for help

From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja

A 36 years old man, Abdullahi Sheriff whose wife and two children were kidnapped in his residence on Friday evening in lokoja has cried out to the state government and security agencies to rescue his wife who has just been discharged from the hospital  with his five year old son.

Gun men had invaded the residence of Sheriff  at Zone 12 , Zango  at the outskirts of Lokoja the State Capital on Friday evening at about 8.45 pm
and began to shoot sporadically before they gained entry into the house and took away his wife and two children.

Narrating his ordeals while speaking with newsmen on Sunday, Sheriff who is a struggling young man said he had to go and obtain a loan to complete part of his house due to the pressures from his Landlord who has jerked up the rent
and parked to the new house on 18 December last year with his family.

He said everything went smoothly until Friday evening when he rushed out to get some food items for his family as he received call from one of his wives who told him to stay away for a while as gun men were shooting sporadically in his compound.

He said he immediately swung into action and went to the Vigilante Office in Zango but was asked to go and report first at the police station which he immediately did but was surprised the police said they could not do anything as their vehicle was  not on ground.

In his words” I again raced back to the Vigilante Office and they told me that they could not act except their oga gave them an order to do so. I was there for more than 30 minutes trying to call their OGA to no avail while the Kidnappers were still in my house shooting sporadically.

” At last the Army came in but it was already late,  my senior wife Abidat  Sheriff, 35 years old who was just discharged from the hospital on Wednesday was abducted with my daughter Zainab Sheriff who is  One year eight months old and my five years old son, Mubarak. Mubarak was abducted naked without any clothes nor shoe on him.

”  The Army then traced the Kidnappers into the forest , I followed them and we were seeing some touch lights on the mountain which made the Leader of the Army to urged them to pursue vigorously, but suddenly we started hearing another sporadic gunshots at our back and we paused to trace where the gunshots were coming  from only to discover it was another group of vigilante firing shots.

” This actually distracted us as the Army could not trace anything again which made them to suspend the pursuit till the following day.

” However when I waited in the morning without seeing any one, I and some of my friends went inside the forest to comb the area for more than five hours before I was called by the police to come home and give my statement”.

“Meanwhile,  some people drew our attention to an uncomplicated building along the bush path where they dumped Zainab, my one year  eight  months  old  daughter who had cried and cried right in that area where there are dangerous snakes”.
Also speaking to newsmen,the second wife , Mrs  Faiza Aliba Sheriff  who was in the house when the kidnapers came, said she was  saved by mother luck  as she just went  into the  inner room to prepare the food of her sucking baby when the Kidnappers invaded into their parlour.

She said immediately they entered she put off the light , held the mouth of her baby  tightly and lied under the bed stressing that her first born , a three years old Nazirat was also abducted but she kept on crying ferociously before they were angered and threw her out of the window.

Faiza said she later managed to escape through the back door , where she saw one of the children hiding in the store fidgeting adding she had to crawl with the children into the thick darkness , running far away from house before a good Samaritan took them into his house till day break.

Sheriff who broke down and wept profusely called on the  office of  the  National Security Adviser to provide helicopter and drones to trace the Kidnappers and also called on the Army and other security agencies to do all they can to rescue his wife and child who have spent two days in captivity.

Meanwhile, as at the time of filing in this report, the Kidnappers had not called to demand for any ransom neither the police nor the state government are yet to make any statement over the incident.