The mysterious disappearance of a 19-year-old after an outing with a friend a few weeks ago is causing his family sleepless nights, reports Kunle Akinrinade.
Suspect detained at SCID
No clue yet on his whereabouts — Police
Where is Ayomide Adegoye? That is the mystery the police in Lagos are trying to unravel following the disappearance of the 19-year-old school leaver after he left home with one Toyosi Kolawole to see the latter’s friend named Peter in Joju part of Ota, Ogun State since January 6.
Ayomide’s 48-year-old father and fashion designer, Tunde Adegoye, has become a shadow of his bubbly self in their neighborhood in Ojokoro, a Lagos suburb, his son’s mysterious disappearance. His voice was shaky and his countenance sullen as he spoke with our correspondent on Ayomide’s whereabouts.
Kolawole, the 23-year-old friend Ayomide was said to have gone out with, was said to be a student in one of the polytechnics in Ogun State.
The senior Adegoye, a native of Ikare-Akoko, Ondo State, is pained that his son has not been found more than one month after he left home.
According to him, Ayomide left his residence at No 3, Awoyomi Crescent in Ahmadiyya area of Ojokoro with his friend, Toyosi, for Ota, Ogun State on January 6. But while Toyosi returned home later in the day, his son was nowhere to be found.
Ayomide’s father said: ”Toyosi’s parents and I are neighbours. My house is at No 3, Awoyomi Crescent while Toyosi lives with his parents at No 2 of the same address.
”Toyosi and my son are friends and they usually mingle together even with my other children.
“However, on January 6 this year, Toyosi asked my son to accompany him to the place of one of his friends named Peter in Joju part of Ota, Ogun State. I even met them at Ahmadiyya in front of a PoS operator while I was returning from one of my customers at Ipaja.
“My son told me that Toyosi wanted to cash some money before they would continue with their trip. Since that day, I have not set my eyes on my son.
”Initially, when I didn’t see my son, I called his mobile phone and that of Toyosi but their phones were switched off. It was not until the evening of January 7 that I was able to reach Toyosi who claimed that my son detoured while they were returning home at the Toll Gate end of Ota.
“He said my son received a call on his phone and left for an unknown destination while he returned home.
”I cannot sleep at night because the thought of my son’s mysterious disappearance haunts me. His siblings are also greatly troubled over his whereabouts. Please, help me beg the police to unravel the mystery behind my son’s whereabouts.”
It was learnt that the matter was reported at the Ojokoro Police Division, following which Toyosi and Peter their host were arrested.
They have since been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) where Toyosi is being detained for further investigation.
In a telephone conversation with our correspondent, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said the suspect was still in the custody of SCID, Panti.
Adejobi, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), said there has not been any clue yet on the whereabouts of the missing boy.
Adejobi said: ”The boy who took his friend out, leading to the latter’s controversial disappearance, is still in the custody of SCID at Panti, Yaba, as we speak.
”We haven’t got a clue yet as to the whereabouts of the missing boy, but we are intensifying our investigations on the matter.”
While assuring that the police would not relent in its effort to unravel Ayomide’s whereabouts, Adejobi urged anyone with genuine information on the location of the boy to feel free to release such to the police.
‘’I want to urge members of the public, especially family members and friends of the missing boy, who might have information that could aid the police in finding the boy, to please feel free to share such information with the police either by coming to the state police command or approach the SCID.”
Tracking hard drugs to Lagos from international highways
Meet the policeman who takes his six-year-old twin sons to crack joint
This is the dream of a Lagos crack dealer: to see the sun rise daily in its silvery splendour while the city stirs to hustle and thrill seekers pursue a new kind of “jonzing.”
His name is Kola but “customers” call him O’ngbana. At 49, O’ngbana swaggers through Ipodo like a cocky prince of the barrio. Amid the shanty in Ikeja, Lagos, he made a killing everyday until COVID-19 struck, dwindling patronage to a trickle.
Business is at a scary low. A dribble here, a trickle there, makes O’ngbana very worried. “People don’t have money to eat let alone smoke crack (adulterated cocaine). But I have my loyal customers. Come rain or shine, they will always show up,” he said, and forlornly recalled the glory days of his hustle, when he made as much as N10, 000 in a day and about N50, 000 in a week, dealing crack and Indian Hemp.
Before the pandemic, O’ngbana enjoyed cozy patronage as “students, teenagers commercial sex workers, street urchins, police officers and soldiers” thronged his stall for their daily fix. “Patronage often increased around midnight, especially on weekends, when customers (persons with drug dependence) sought me out,” he said.
Proudly asserting his dominance in the seedy settlement, he led me down a rough tract into an alley, explaining how to locate him on a week day and a weekend. We walked down Ipodo’s dingy streets into a decrepit shed built as an outcrop from a begrimed bungalow.
Outside, a smothering stench clung to the air, like a warning through the maze of heads and bloodshot eyes, burning holes into our frames. Inside, a stunning stash of drugs — crack cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, authentic cannabis and its clones shimmered atop a wooden table. The hard drugs are designed to mimic the effects of Schedule I and II substances like unadulterated cocaine, heroin and amphetamines — and every single one of them is illegal.
At the extreme left of the joint, a buxom girl crushed rocks of crack and ecstasy pills into a fine powder. Skillfully, she mixed them with cannabis and dusted the powder with a plastic spoon into jars containing psychotropic brews including omi gota (Gutter Juice), colorado, pamilerin.
The owner of the lab, Ralph, who recognised me from a previous encounter at O’ngbana’s stall, approached me with a smile. He was eager to transact a prospective business venture – though fictive – with me. He relished the idea of supplying N80, 000 worth of crack and heroin for a supposed bachelor’s eve party for my best friend. “I will be expecting you,” he enthused as we departed his den.
It was enlightening to watch Ralph work. He presided over his den with studious attention. Nothing evaded him. Within the five minutes that we spent in his den, he sold N38, 000 worth of hard drugs.
O’ngbana revealed, that, having conducted due diligence on me, Ralph concluded that I wasn’t a cop hence his acceptance of my patronage. “Everybody here is wary of new faces. Nobody wants trouble from undercover drug police,” said O’ngbana.
But for all his street smarts, O’ngbana has been reduced to just a middle man, a dispensable fragment of the Ipodo drug trafficking network. “The pandemic has ruined everything. I have lost the high level contacts that I struggled to build in the past four years. But I will get out of this place soon,” he said, vowing to join the big league in Europe and South America.
Until then, the 49-year-old would focus on getting by and staying alive. To achieve this, he keeps a mane of menacing wit and killer instinct to lionise his feeble frame against the street elements.
It’s a necessary performance of will cum survival in Ipodo, a neighbourhood brimming with drug dealers, cutthroat rivals, unforgiving henchmen, suicidal customers and corrupt law enforcers.
“These days, I have resorted to hooking customers up with dealers. This barely fetches me N3, 000 in a week,” he said, stressing that the most sensible thing he had done in recent times, was to use his earnings to acquire an “oloso” (commercial sex hawker), whom he apprenticed to a madame and Ralph, a crack dealer. Her name is Happiness and she is 14-years-old.
“I have invested over N30, 000 on her. But she is a fast learner. My friend, who is her boss said she has brought in more clients than bonafide members of his crew and the freelancers he employs to deal drugs,” said O’ngbana.
There is no gainsaying Happiness has learned to play her part; the blithesome sheaf of spunk and baby fat exchanges sex for money while simultaneously dealing crack cocaine and heroin to some of her customers.
A drug dealer mixes gutter juice with cocaine purchased in Ipodo
At our first encounter, she sashayed, flailing like a rag doll bound in an extremely tight camisole and undersized skirt. Happiness hustled like a street-wise cougar. Striking a pose outside KO’s Gardens, a brothel, she canvassed for male customers promising to fulfill every fantasy and its fruits.
Soon after she emerged from her room with a customer, she sidled beside a a middle-aged man sipping beer at a table by the brothel’s entrance. Happiness sat beside him teasing him with a smile.
Sparse dialogue, crushing banality, you simply dismiss the likelihood of anything happening until she leaned in and reached for his member, tracing her fingers along its length “in search of the cap.”
Seguing from street pidgin to neat English, she said, “Na street sense na,” she said, bragging that no man could refuse her “magic fingers” and teen-hellcat poise.
“Some men are sick like that,” she segued to neater English. “Many of my customers pick me because I am a small girl and I am very good. But I know what I am doing. I hope to make enough money to buy my freedom and set up a small business,” she said.
Until then, Happiness will serve as a sex slave to O’ngbana because he “saved” her from the streets and took good care of her. For instance, at her arrival in Ipodo, he introduced her to a madame who gave her “hustle clothing” (skimpy wears) for free. He also negotiated on her behalf, an arrangement whereby she was exempted from paying the mandatory N3, 000 daily rent of the tiny room where she sleeps with customers for money.
O’ngbana’s relationship with her is, however, guided by street wisdom. He knows he could only sell a rock of crack once to a customer or hook the latter up with a dealer for a paltry commission – and that is subject to drug demand and availability.
But he profits off Happiness multiple times a day, by pimping her off to different customers, seven or eight times a day.
A small rock of adulterated cocaine aka crack sells at N500 to N1, 000. But O’ngbana pimps Happiness to customers at N1, 500 per romp – often called three or five minute ‘short time.’
Together with O’ngbana, the 14-year-old oils the wheels, and powers the chug chug of Ipodo’s narcotics sales engine and sex trafficking network. But teacher and student, pimp and sex worker, are mere fragments of the menacing underworld that controls and feeds Lagosians’ lust for hard drugs.
At our first encounter, Happiness confidently laid her hands on me, stating, “Come, let me blow your mind.” At our second encounter, she suggested that we doped on gbana (crack cocaine) promising to “bless” me with heavenly delight. “I will take you to celestial heights,” she said.
Asides hustling on the street and luring men into her dingy bed at KO’s Garden, a brothel, Happiness sells hard drugs to some of her customers. Sometimes, when business is hard, she requests a split in the cost of her sexual services, taking N1, 000 cash and between N500 to N1, 000 worth of crack. Officially, she declares N1, 500 as her earning on each customer, “But I often make more than that. Some pay me N2, 000, N3, 000. When I see complete mugu, I collect N5, 000 for short-time,” she said.
Invisible in plain sight
Happiness is simply one of several youths trapped in the rapture of hallucinogenic substances but ignored in plain sight by regulatory authorities. Between 2018 and 2019, nearly 15% of Nigeria’s adult population (around 14.3 million people) reported a “considerable level” of use of psychotropic drug substances, a rate much higher than the 2016 global average of 5.6% among adults.
The survey was led by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse with technical support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and funding from the European Union.
It showed the highest levels of drug use was recorded among people aged between 25 to 39, with cannabis being the most widely used drug. Sedatives, heroin, cocaine and the non-medical use of prescription opioids were also noted. The survey excluded the use of tobacoo and alcohol.
It also excluded teenagers like Happiness mired in the stark wilderness of prostitution and the dangerous highs of crack cocaine.
Crack cocaine seized by the NDLEA
Few people would forget in a hurry, the heartrending story of Lizzy, the 26-year-old with a dependence on crack cocaine until her rescue by Dr. Tony Rapu, the founder of Freedom Foundation, an anti-drug dependence non governmental organisation (NGO).
Lizzy said she had been taking crack cocaine and living with her captors for seven years before she was rescued by Rapu.
She explained that she developed a hankering for cocaine seven years ago, while smoking weed with her boyfriend. The latter, she said, eventually revealed to her that he had been mixing her wraps with cocaine to her surprise, but it was too late as she got addicted.
Extent of drug use by geopolitical zones
There is no gainsaying many a life has been destroyed amid the bowels and drug dens of Ipodo, where crack cocaine and heroin are fast becoming a teen addiction and a fancy addition to the now ubiquitous psychotropic potions like gutter juice, pamilerin, colorado and so on widely accessed by youths across Lagos.
Of the regions included in the NBS and UNODC study, Lagos and Oyo in the South-West recorded a higher past-year prevalence of drug use among the southern geopolitical zones (at range 13.8 per cent to 22.4 per cent) compared to the northern geopolitical zones (range 10 per cent-13.6 per cent).
With approximately 6.4 million people aged 15-64 residing in Lagos State, the estimated past year prevalence of any drug use in South-West zone was established as nearly twice the national prevalence – an estimated 22.4 per cent or 4.38 million people of the Lagos population aged 15-64 had used drugs in the past year.
How do hard drugs get to the streets of Lagos?
There are several ways of getting cocaine from South America to Europe via Lagos, West Africa. In the past, there had been three main hubs in West Africa for receipt and redistribution of the cocaine shipments: The northern hub, radiating from Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, The Gambia, and Senegal. The southern hub, centered on Nigeria, including Benin, Togo, and Ghana. And an eastern hub, encompassing Mali and parts of Mauritania, of particular use in receiving consignments by air.
Once in West Africa, the drugs proceed to Europe along a number of routes. In the past, traffickers relied on large mother ships that offloaded cocaine onto smaller coastal craft. Commercial air couriers can carry only small amounts, but their frequent use can offset this deficiency, and they also allow for great flexibility, moving drugs from any country in the region to any European destination.
Cocaine shipments can also be trafficked onward by sea or by land across the Sahara to North Africa, where they are flown to Europe in light aircraft or shuttled across the Mediterranean in go-fast boats. As with the Atlantic routes, all of these approaches are utilized in parallel, with the preferred technique and routing changing in response to law enforcement efforts.
Due to the free movement of people and goods throughout the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region, drugs are often routed through member states without the hindrances of border controls.
The drive from Lagos (Nigeria) through Cotonou (Benin) and Lome (Togo) to Accra (Ghana), for instance, is less than 500 km and can be completed in one day. Guinea- Bissau, one of the primary countries of ingress for cocaine, lacks commercial air links to the destination markets, and connections from Banjul (The Gambia) are not much better. As a result, most air couriers in the north depart from Dakar (Senegal) or Conakry (Guinea).
•Sachets of Cannabis available at N100 each in Ipodo
On arrival in Europe, the drugs may be sold to European or South American crime groups, or distributed through the extensive network of West Africans involved in retail cocaine distribution.
South American cocaine transiting West Africa, however, comes from all three source countries: Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia.
Setbacks in West Africa and the opportunities in Honduras after the 2009 coup led Venezuela-based traffickers to shift their attention to the US market. But if the flow from Venezuela has declined, where is West Africa getting its cocaine?
Brazil may be the answer, particularly for West African- owned shipments. Brazil has long been a source for Lusophone Guinea-Bissau but it has since become a source for countries throughout the region. The amount of cocaine trafficked to and through Brazil has increased remarkably in recent years, as reflected in growing seizure statistics.
Gbenga Mabo, the Director of Operations and Investigations of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said in a recent interview that more than 80 per cent of the cocaine that comes into Nigeria comes from Brazil, through Highway 10.
He argued that because Brazil is surrounded by Peru, Bolivia, Chile and others, a lot of cocaine gets into the country, and a syndicate of Nigerians operating in Brazil smuggles the hard drug into Lagos.
Nigerians have long dominated commercial air couriering from Brazil: close to 90% of the mules arrested at the international airport in Sao Paulo report obtaining their cocaine from Nigerian groups.
According to liaison officers in Brazil, Nigerian groups organize up to 30% of the cocaine exports by ship or container from Santos, Brazil’s largest port, up from negligible levels a few years earlier. The Sao Paulo-based Nigerian groups are also responsible for a very large share of the postal shipments of cocaine leaving the country.
Amoo Kolawole, 51, for instance, got caught while trafficking cocaine from Lagos through Europe for a Nigerian syndicate. He was arrested while travelling by rail between Switzerland and France. The First Class graduate of Electrical/Electronic Engineering with a specialisation in Communications Control and Devices refused to embark on the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme on graduation and instead chose to become a drug mule.
Speaking to The Nation at his base in London, he said, “Due to my desperation to travel out, I joined a bad crew. With their help, I started trafficking cocaine. I got caught trafficking cocaine at the frontier between Switzerland and France. I got caught on a train. I was taken to a hospital and the cocaine I ingested was discovered in me after they opened my stomach. I was very lucky because some of it had spilled into my stomach. Consequently, I spent three years in a French prison.”
A blizzard of seizures
Recently, the NDLEA seized a consignment of cocaine and heroin worth N30 billion at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, in Lagos. The spokesman of the agency, Jonah Achema, revealed that the drugs were seized from Onyejegbu Ifesinachi Jennifer, a 33-year-old lady, who arrived Nigeria from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
According to him, the seizure weighing 26.840 kilograms is the biggest single seizure from an individual in the past 15 years. Achema said that the drugs were seized after she was searched in line with NDLEA protocol profiling passengers “from high risk countries”.
•These capsules of cocaine were seized from a smuggler by the NDLEA at the Airport
“Field test was conducted on the recovered substances and proved positive to cocaine and weighed 26.850 kilograms. The suspect who is a hair stylist and based in Brazil was interviewed and she confessed to have agreed to smuggle the hard drug for the sum of N2m only,” said Achema.
This development came on the heels of a similar one recorded two days earlier at the same airport, on January 25, 2021 when a red left-over luggage was declared to the NDLEA operatives as a left over at the E-Arrival hall after the inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian airline.
Based on information on the luggage tag, the luggage arrived Nigeria from Sao Paulo, Brazil, a destination classified as high-risk country going by records and trends of arrest and seizures.
Subsequently, the NDLEA arrested suspects Abubakar Aliyu, Emmanuel Iyke Aniebonam, Onwurah Kelvin, while trying to retrieve the drugs on behalf of one Ikechukwu Eze.
The detained bag, which was opened in the presence all the three suspects, reportedly contained whitish powdery substances were discovered neatly concealed and sewn inside five children duvets.
Field test was carried out on the exhibits which proved they are cocaine weighing 8.400 Kilograms, with a street value of over N7bn.
Hard drug economics
As the prices paid for illicit drugs, and the profits to be made from them, are far higher in Europe and the US than in West Africa, large-scale traffickers generally seek to ship illicit drugs through the region to the international markets. However, in some cases low-level drug traffickers are paid in kind and lack the resources or networks to move the drugs across borders. Consequently, they flood the local market with illicit drugs, contributing to the growth in domestic consumption rates.
A spike in heroin and cocaine production since 2016 is the likely explanation for the increase in the volumes of each drug type transiting through Lagos and other parts of West Africa.
Following rudimentary economics of supply and demand, the increased supply of cocaine and heroin to the domestic markets in the region has led to falling prices and easier accessibility to the hard drugs.
For instance, in 2017, the price for one ‘hit’ of heroin or crack cocaine, was just over US$2.16
On average, cocaine users reported spending N 6,300 NGN (or 20 USD) per day on cocaine (N 7,000 by women or 22 USD spent per day). This amount is nearly half of the national minimum wage per month. Similarly methamphetamine users spent an average of N 4,000 (or USD 13) per day. The growing sophistication of drug-trafficking groups generally continues to outstrip the investigatory capacity of law-enforcement authorities. This has led a number of players in the international community involved in tackling the regional drug trade, together with members of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the police force, to predict that the situation will get worse before it gets better.
Taming the dragon
Recently, the Medical Director (MD) of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital (FNPH), Yaba, Dr. Oluwayemi Ogun, raised the alarm over increasing prevalence of drug abused induced mental disorders among children, adolescent and adult Nigerians saying over 150 new cases are admitted at the hospital and its Child and Adolescent Centre, Oshodi Annexe every week.
Reacting to teen addiction to psychotropic substances, she said, in an exclusive interview with The Nation, that: “Codeine, cocaine, Indian Hemp, Tramadol and Rohypnol are seriously dangerous to health the way they are abused.”
She said, “There is need for a lot of counselling and education of the youths. They must be made to understand that taking psychotropic substances would have adverse effects on them and possibly wreck their lives. Since the lockdown, the number of people taking drugs has sky-rocketed. Many of them ended up as our patients at the psychiatric hospital. Troubled teenagers especially must understand that the good times are made, not sniffed, drunk or smoked.”
The senior psychiatrist urged parents, schools and religious groups to complement government’s efforts at combating the trend. “ We must act fast before this thing engulfs us… Many resort to hard drugs to escape their daily problems, to forget their battles with unemployment, poverty and so on. But hard drugs do not take away problems, they add to the problems and compound them for users,” she said.
Priscilla Benjamin-Olaoye, a mental health expert, stated that hard drugs only offer a temporary sensation. Once the drug wears off, individuals put themselves at risk of developing a dependence as they try to reach the same high and avoid withdrawals.
Should parents resort to spiritual homes or visit orthodox psychiatric hospitals?
Benjamin-Olaoye argued that although the first assumption to make is that drug addiction is a spiritual problem, substance abuse is actually a chronic relapsing disorder, leading to mental and behavioural challenges.
Arguably, a spiritual problem, she stressed, is one in which the individual has no control over, but “in this case, substance abuse is one which the individual behaves themselves into.”
You cannot pray yourself out of what you behaved yourself into, she argued, urging parents to implement a healthy balance of both. She said, “Don’t focus on the spiritual aspect, while the emotional needs of the child is left unmet.”
Priscilla-Olaoye could save her homily for parents like Corporal Martins. A random trip to Ipodo unfurled with confounding imagery of the Nigerian police officer. Through the muck and mayhem of the drug den, the fair-complexioned man engaged O’ngbana, among others, in a heated argument.
•This rock of crack cocaine costs N1,000 in Ipodo
Martins, a self-confessed cannabis lover cut a curious picture lounging at a makeshift bar cum drug den with his twin sons. Although the latter are barely six-years old, he argued that he had done nothing wrong by bringing them to the drug den.
“It’s better I expose them to what I do. What’s the big deal about it? They can’t beat me. And I would rather they find out from me that I smoke ganja (cannabis) and not from someone else,” he said.
“Na only cigarette I no dey smoke again but I dey take ganja. If I dey work, I dey take ganja (I don’t smoke cigarette but I smoke cannabis. When I am at work, I smoke cannabis)” he stressed.
Martins dismissed warnings that bringing his five and six-year-old sons to the drug den might wreak dangerous influence on them arguing, “Why should I hide my vices from them while I train them? They will be the one to train me when I age,” he said to wild applause.
Captive in Ipodo
In Ipodo, everything whim merges as one, and a vileness runs through it all. The Ikeja suburb is a constellation of people prowling various phases of drug dependence.
Residents call it Lagos city’s open sore, a colony of society’s rejects steamy with lust and searing on the psyche like a blood-bursting blister.
Within and around the drug den subsists a thriving market, the shrill blare of passing vehicles, noise from the music shops, the natters and wild altercation of thrill seekers occasionally spoiling for a fight spurred by the infinite of tang of marijuana, ecstasy, crack cocaine and heroin.
Amid the chaos, Happiness makes a living as a sex slave and drug dealer, on the watch of a fierce madame, Ralph and O’ngbana.
A radiant captive in a dingy brothel, the 14-year-old sheds her innocence in the warrens of Ipodo. She sleeps with seven to eight men daily. Sometimes 10. Even so, she would not sleep at night. “Menacing, ill-smelling patrons” bang on her door, intruding her private space, to ravage her paling body, under her madame and O’ngbana’s eagle eyes, till the wee hours of the morning.
Speaking with The Nation, her voice occasionally flailed, leaving on the wind, a tinge of fatigue. To survive, she must strip to her bare flesh and work her supple behind to the bones, according to her patrons’ lustful wishes.
Her hidden graces unclothed, men old enough to be her father drool to her door, day and night, to maul and harvest womanly fruits from her girly frame. To survive their ravage, she cradles dreams of freedom and fairer tomorrow. These days, all that’s left are a mop of faith and a grain of will in her arid body. She is just 14.
Residents of Berger area of Suleja, Suleja Local Government Area, Niger State are battling to unravel the mystery behind the death of three siblings whose bodies were found in a septic tank.
The concerned residents cannot stop wondering what could have prompted anyone to kill the innocent children and why none of the neighbours in a compound of 10 flats heard or saw nothing while the evil act was being perpetrated.
Sunday, February 28, 2021 is a day Chinedum Aro, a widow would never get over in her life. It was the day the bodies of her three children, Chidozie (9), Chinedum (6) and Chidinma (3) were found in her water tank.
The three children had been found to be missing the previous day with their mother and sympathetic neighbours launching a search for them only to find their bodies with slit throats deposited in the septic tank.
The day before the gory sight, Aro, their mother, had gone to the market where she sells drinks in retail and wholesale, leaving her children at home like she said she had always done even before the death of her husband last year. She also said she was sure that the children would not open the door for anybody including the neighbours.
On Saturday, February 27, however, Aro returned from the market only to find that the house was desolate and there was no sign of the children in the vicinity.
She said: “They were washing clothes at the time I was going to the market. Each time I leave them at home, I instruct them not to open the door for anybody and they always obeyed.
“My door is always locked and they were not the kind of children you would see playing outside; they were always inside the house.
“The only time you would see them outside was when they were going to school or church, and once they returned, they would enter the house and lock the door.
“The day the incident occurred, I instructed them as usual that if anyone should come and tried to force the door open, they should shout and the neighbours will come out, then I left.
“When I returned from the market in the evening, the door was closed but not locked. I knocked but no one answered.
“When I entered the house, all the curtains were down, and I wondered what kind of sleep they might have been sleeping. I searched the whole house but I did not see them.
“I asked the security man about them and he said he did not see them come outside. I had to call my neighbours to tell them what happened and we started searching everywhere but we did not see the children.”
Retiring for the day worried, Aro woke up the next morning with a shout from the security man who had gone to her tank to fetch water but found blood coming out from the tap instead of water.
Alarmed, they checked inside the tank and saw the bodies of the three children with knife cuts around their necks. The tank had to be cut to bring out the bodies of the children.
“When my house help wanted to fetch water on Sunday, he saw blood coming out of the water tank, and when we checked inside, I saw my three children all dead,” she said amid sobs.
The corpses were taken to the Umaru Musa Yaradua Memorial Hospital, Sabon Wuse where they were certified dead and kept at the hospital’s mortuary.
The shock of the death of her children caused the grieving widow to collapse and has since been admitted into the hospital where she is currently receiving treatment.
Nurses in the hospital said she was being kept there for fear of what she could to herself if she was left alone in the house. They feared that she might commit suicide or slip into depression.
A family friend and Chairman of the Ukede United Front, Abuja, the township meeting of Aro in the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Ifesi Nwodo, said the death of the children remained a mystery.
He said it was strange that no one in the neighbourhood heard or saw anything with the magnitude of the crime.
He said: “I have never seen or heard anything like this in my life. But it happened, and it was to one of the people I know. It is very unfortunate.
“We want people to come to our and help us in fishing out the perpetrator. We want everyone who saw or heard something that day to come out and tell us.”
When our correspondent visited the compound of 10 flats of three-bedrooms, none of the neighbours met was ready to say anything about the crime. They all directed the reporter to the police, saying the police were the ones handling the case and they had answered all the questions thrown at them.
Some neighbours our reporter inquired from about the children said they (children) were rarely seen outside as they were always indoors after school hours or on weekends.
One of them said the children would never open the door for any reason.
“No matter how hard you knocked, the children would tell you that their mother was not at home hence they could not open the door. So we were surprised when we heard what happened,” a neighbor said, pleading anonymity.
The Public Relations Officer of the Niger State Police Command, Wasiu Abiodun, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), who confirmed the incident, said the case had been transferred to the state CID, adding that it was being investigated.
He said that some people had already been arrested in respect of the crime but they were yet to disclose who the suspects were or where they came from.
Abiodun also said the hospital was working alongside the police to unearth the real cause of the death, saying that once the post-mortem examination was done, the hospital would furnish the police with information that would help them to continue with their investigation.
The grieving widow, who said she has no one else in the world, appealed to the government and well-meaning Nigerians to help her find the killers of her children.
“My husband died last year and left me with the children, but now my children too are gone. I am now all alone. I don’t have anyone else. What did my children do that they had to kill them? What crime did my beautiful angels commit?
“I am begging the government to help me find those people that are responsible for the death of my children.
“Nigerians should please help me identify the people that killed my children and I will be the happiest person in the world.”
Despite the stereotype belief that military men are unsmiling with tough-looking mien, Brigadier-General Mohammed Buba Marwa broke the stereotype as he is still widely remembered as the handsome, ever-smiling military-man, who was well-loved with his people-oriented policies as Military administrator of Lagos before the transition to full democracy.
Since the Adamawa-born retired military chieftain and astute politician left office as Nigeria High Commissioner to South Africa, his last major position as appointed by late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, many failed to reckon with him.
His recent appointment as the chief executive officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has further cemented his relevance in the political clime. An unarguably close ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, Marwa had worked assiduously as Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse, PACEDA, between 2018 and December 2020, along with others to develop a blueprint on how to end the drug abuse menace in Nigeria. Sources said after studying the reports on national drug strategy, it was unanimously agreed that Marwa is the best man to be appointed as the nation’s gatekeeper to address the opioid epidemic ravaging the youth demography. He has not only performed excellently well he has also shown more than enough capacity and results to justify Buhari’s confidence in him. As NDLEA boss, Marwa hits the ground running with characteristic decisiveness and seriousness of purpose, setting out his agenda and strategies by reading the riot act to drug cartels across the country in a bid to curb the truly terrifying menace called drug abuse in Nigeria.
Marwa’s method is not that different this time around. Within a month in office, he has led the anti-drugs agency to seize various types of illicit drugs worth scores of billions of naira with strong determination to bring drug barons to their knees.
By Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt, and Toba Adedeji, Osogbo
Three persons were killed at the weekend in Ibaa, a community in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Sources blamed the banned Ibaa Security Planning and Advisory Committee (ISPAC) for the killings, but the security outfit denied the allegation, saying that the deceased died in a cult war.
A youth from the area said ISPAC members killed the three persons when they invaded the community, adding that several other persons were missing after the incident.
He called on Governor Nyesom Wike to intervene.
He said: “As it stands now youths of the community are living in fear. These ISPAC boys that have been banned came into the community last week and killed over three boys.”
The Secretary of ISPAC, Aleru Livingstone, denied involvement in the development saying that a cult war was responsible for the incident.
On Saturday gunmen abducted two travellers on the Ife/Ibadan Expressway in the Wasinmi area of Ayedire Local Government Area of Osun State.
The travellers were on their way to Ibadan from Ile-Ife when they were seized.
Police have launched a manhunt for the two travellers.
Three suspects were arrested in connection with the abduction, a security source said.
Police spokesperson Yemisi Opalola said, “We deployed our men to the scene of the crime after a distress call and we rescued two victims and arrested three suspects,” the source said.
The Nation learnt that the policemen promptly arrived at the kidnap scene and engaged the hoodlums in a gun battle.
Some of the travellers were reportedly rescued while three of the kidnappers were taken into custody.
However, two of the commuters, a driver and a passenger, were abducted by the hoodlums.
Police said they were in search of the two travellers as well as the kidnappers on the run.
Three members of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) who allegedly arrested a herdsman Iskilu Wakili have been taken into police custody in Oyo State.
Wakili is accused of being behind kidnappings and other violent crimes in Ayete and environs in the Ibarapa area of the state.
Police spokesman Olugbenga Fadeyi said Commissioner of Police directed that Wakili be taken to hospital due to his frail health.
Fadeyi said the command learnt yesterday that some OPC members “invaded Kajola community in Ibarapa…to arrest one Wakili, a Fulani by tribe, who is alleged to be the sponsor and mastermind of various criminal attacks against the people/farmers of Yoruba origin in the community.
“While (at Kajola), the house of the Wakili in question was set ablaze, a female was burnt in the fire and Wakili (about 75 years old and blind) with two other persons were picked up.
“The three of them are presently in the custody of the police. The Commissioner of Police has directed that Wakili be moved to the hospital, while others are being interrogated. Others being interrogated are the OPC members involved in arson and murder.
“The Oyo State Police Command wishes to inform the general public that any person or group of persons from any region or tribe that has been found culpable to have committed any criminal act(s) in the state would not be spared, but would be arrested and dealt with according to extant laws.”
”Anybody that has any case against Iskilu Wakili should report it to the State Criminal Investigation Department, (CID) Iyaganku Ibadan for discreet Investigation.”
A man has been shot dead on Election Day allegedly by members of a disbanded vigilance group in Evwreni community, Ughelli North council area of Delta State.
The Nation learnt that Muvi Unagha was gunned down at the weekend at a popular bar in the community while waiting for election materials for the just-concluded local polls.
It was learnt that Unagha and some youths in the community, mostly members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) were drinking at the bar when three cars pulled over and gunmen in them opened fire on the drinkers.
The victim was rushed to Central Hospital at Ughelli where he was confirmed dead.
Evwereni community has been embroiled in crisis in the past one year leading to the death of over eight persons.
Police spokesman Edafe Bright confirmed the incident saying, “A young man was shot dead yesterday at Evwreni, and as we speak, the police are on the trail of the suspects in order to bring them to book, but as of now, no arrest has been made.”
A police officer attached to Edo State Investigation and Intelligence Bureau (SIIB), Clement Amoko, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), has been kidnapped in Benin, the state capital.
The assailants yesterday invaded Amoko’s house in the Ogida area of the city and took him away in the presence of his wife and children.
Our reporter gathered that the kidnappers later contacted the family of the policeman to demand a huge ransom, but the exact figure could not be ascertained last night.
Police spokesman Princewill Osaigbovo confirmed the ASP’s kidnap, noting that the command was intensifying rescue efforts, with various units and other security teams already deployed to ensure the victim’s quick release unhurt.
Decomposing bodies of a man and a woman have been found in a big sack on the border between Amanze and Amainyi communities in Ihitte Uboma Local Government Area of Imo State.
Some of their parts were missing in what the locals called money ritual killing.
The bodies were reportedly found by farmers, a development which caused panic in both communities.
Police spokesman Orlando Ikeokwu did not respond to inquiries by our correspondent on the incident.
“However, on January 6 this year, Toyosi asked my son to accompany him to the place of one of his friends named Peter in Joju part of Ota, Ogun State. I even met them at Ahmadiyya in front of a PoS operator while I was returning from one of my customers at Ipaja.
