By Christopher Oji
A 13-year-old female student, Miracle Adereti Kolawole has been abducted on her way back from school by yet-to-be identified gang in Lagos .
The girl was abducted last Friday,December 1, while on her way back home from school in the Ikotun area of the state.
According to Miracle’s father, Mr. Adereti Oluwadare Segun, he dropped Miracle and her younger sister at the bus stop where the school bus usually pick them in the morning and headed to his office at the Murtala Muhammed Airport where he works as an air traffic communicator with the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), but later received a distress call in the afternoon that the youngster has been kidnapped on her way back home from the bus stop.
When our reporter visited the home of the Aderetis on Sunday, sympathizers were seen gathered consoling the family while they discussed the rise in cases of kidnapping in the state calling on the police to beef up security as the yuletide season sets in.
At the Afonka police station Egbeda, Alimosho , Lagos, where the incident was reported, a police incident report seen by our reporter showed that the kidnapped case was reported on the same day while investigation and rescue team is being led by Inspector Ogidiolu Olajimi.
A police officer in mufti who declined to reveal his identity told our correspondent that the police rescue team was on the trail of the hoodlum who perpetrated the act adding that the kidnap has political coloration as the kidnappers appeared to have assumed Mr. Adereti to be a wealthy politician in the locality.
The report quoted a witness identified as Madam Moji, who narrated that, “the kidnapped gang drove behind the school bus from the direction of the school ,while they parked some few meters away from the bus stop apparently to allow the school bus driver to drive off before the four men drove after the kids who were trekking home and forcefully grabbed Miracle and pushed her into the blue coloured Toyota Sienna bus and zoomed off.”
Speaking to journalists, Mr. Adereti, said,“my wife and I woke up early that morning as usual to prepare the kids for school before I dropped them at the bus stop where the bus will pick them. We honestly didn’t have any premonition of such a wicked act by this gang who claimed that as a politician in my area, I have enough money to pay for my daughter’s release.
“I have received threatening calls from private numbers warning me not to report the case to police, but as a family we are traumatized and there is nowhere else to go than for us to inform the security apparatus.
“I appeal to the hard working men of the Nigeria noble Police Force to kindly swing into action promptly to track the hoodlums responsible for this dastardly act and bring them to book as it appears from their threat that they are demanding ransom from me and my family.
“The situation has traumatized my wife, Miracle and her younger sister. I also kindly appealed that you draft some officers to my residence to offer security in the interim as our lives are in danger following the threatening communication I received from the kidnappers”, he told reporters.