Mrs. Suliat Abdulazeez was in a far better mood than she had been when the reporter met her two years ago. Then, she was in agony.
Tears rolled down her eyes and she was inconsolable because it was only a few days after her two children, a boy and a girl, were stolen by a young woman who was working with her as an apprentice.
On this day, she was full of laughter, having just been delivered of a set of triplets two years after she lost her two children on November 25, 2016; a day that sticks in her memory as the darkest in her life. The day had started brightly only for the world to collapse on her at dusk. Six-year-old Kafayat and her four-year-old younger brother, Farouk, were taken away to the land of no return.
Two days before the sad incident, Suliat had accepted a young lady as an apprentice. The lady, who gave her name as Grace John, had indicated interest in learning braiding and hairdressing in Suliat’s hair salon and she felt no reason to deny her the chance to learn the trade.
Recalling the incident, she said: “The girl came to my shop on a Wednesday and said she wanted to learn hairdressing. I asked who her guarantor was, because she said she came alone. She said she was staying with a friend in the area and would have come with her but the friend had gone to work.
“The next day, she came to resume but without the guarantor. She claimed that her friend could not come because she had gone to work, saying that the friend would come with her the following Sunday.
“She then asked where she could buy soft drinks and I showed her the place as I was attending to a customer. But the girl went away for so long that I started wondering where she had gone to.
“She later came back and I asked her where she went for so long. She said she had to trek down the road to buy the soft drink because the woman I directed her to did not want to release the soft drinks without an empty bottles.
“I shared the soft drinks among my neigbours and also introduced her as my new apprentice.
“I had planned to visit her residence the following day, but I had to first attend a meeting of hairdressers in the community. I returned from the meeting around 4 pm only to discover that nobody knew where she had gone with my children. That was how we started searching for them.”
The father of the missing children, Fatai Abdulazeez, narrated how he had lost virtually everything he had in his bid to recover his children but his efforts yielded no result.
According to him, sometime in the first quarter of 2017, a few months after his children were abducted by the strange apprentice, he heard over the radio that a certain girl who stole a baby had been caught somewhere in Lagos after pretending that she wanted to learn work. He discussed with his wife on the possibility of the culprit being the same girl that stole their two children.
They then decided to go to the Force Headquarters and check. With the help of a certain officer, Abdulazeez was able to trace the alleged kidnapper to the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). He met the officer in charge of the case who asked him whether he would be able to recognise the girl, but he said no; that it was his wife that knew her. He was told to go and bring his wife.
His wife came and shouted immediately she sighted the girl, saying it was the same girl that stole her two children. However, there was a twist. The girl denied ever meeting Suliat, much less kidnap her children. The police asked her whether there were other people who could identify the girl and Suliat told the police that her neighbours could do so.
Abdulazeez said that Suliat went back to the neighbourhood where his wife’s shop was located to bring some of the people that had seen the girl during the three days she was with her. According to Abdulazeez, the neighbours were initially reluctant to come with them for fear of being arrested by the police. But after much pleading, eight of the neigbours came and an identification parade was conducted and each of them identified the suspect as the one that stole the children.
Abdulazeez, however, said an officer told him that the police would need money to do a thorough investigation, since it would require traveling and other logistics. He said he contacted another senior police officer to help him intervene in the case and it was then he got to know that the lady in question, whose real name was Gladys Austin, had been charged to court for abducting the baby for which she was arrested.
Faced with the grim reality that the chance of getting his children back was getting slimmer, Abdulazeez said he had to engage a lawyer, one Barrister Sanni Saidi of Leo Chambers.
The title of a petition from Leo Chambers dated March 22, 2017 and addressed to the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 2 Police Command Onikan, Lagos, reads: “Appeal on compassionate ground to assist, investigate and grill Gladys Austin (also known as John Grace), an apprentice who absconded with her employer’s kids (Kafayat and Farouk Azeez) sometimes in November 2016 and was subsequently caught by the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad for similar act of baby stealing.”
Saidi wrote: “We have the instruction and directive of our client to write to your good office in respect of the above subject matter. Our clients were at SARS section of the state command on Thursday, the 2nd day of March 2017 on the information that Gladys Austin (also known as John Grace) has been apprehended by “ever gallant” SARS operatives … On getting there, the mother of the kids was able to identify Gladys Austin (also known as John Grace) as the apprentice who absconded with her kids and also an identification parade was also conducted and neigbours who had seen the apprentice at work were also called one after the other to ascertain the true identity of her.
“It’s on record that our client reported the incident at the Ojo Police Station sometimes in November 2016 and we hereby deem it fit to bring it to your notice, so that you can deploy your resolute, uncommon expertise and professionalism so that the kids can be relocated and reunited with their family.
“Sir, the manner in which SARS operatives have handled this matter is questionable and their sincerity in this matter is in doubt, despite the fact that there’s no issue to the identity of the suspects, three other suspects (Rita Eze, Ogechi Onweke and Mrs. Elizabeth) were arrested for human trafficking trade with the suspect. We hereby seek the intervention of your good office to take up this matter as a superior authority.”
Asked what was the response of Zone 2, Saidi said: “At State Command, Ikeja, SARS section, when the lady was apprehended, they did identification parade. The mother of the children was able to identify the lady but she denied. So, while we were trying to see how to transfer the matter to Zone 2 and all that, so that a proper investigation could be done, all of a sudden, the suspects, including Gladys Austin, were charged to court.
“We proceeded to Zone 2, wrote a petition and they demanded for money. I think we raised the money for them. That was just it. What we wanted was for them to call those police officers who charged the case to court without investigating our own matter.
Still fighting for the recovery of his children, Abdulazeez wrote a petition dated July 31, 2017 to the Director, Office of the Public Defender, Ministry of Justice, Lagos. But while a lawyer was assigned to the case, there was little that could be done as he kept spending money going to the Surulere office of the Office of the Public Defender without making any progress.
He said his children’s abductor had caused a lot of problems in his home. He said he could not concentrate on his work as an auto mechanic. He could no longer stay in his shop and attend to clients to make money and take care of his family. He has had to sell a plot of land and another partially developed plot.
He said that after spending all the money to see whether he could get his children back, there was no success. He said he had had to slow down as the incident was taking a toll on his family. His wife, Suliat, was so depressed that she attempted killing herself with sniper. Luckily, she was rescued.
With Suliat delivered of a set of triplets, our correspondent contacted the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Elkanah Bala, on the effort being made by the police to recover the missing children. Bala, who only recently took over as the PPRO of the Lagos State Police Command, sympathised with the family and requested to see the father of the children. He referred the case back to the SARS Department of the Lagos Police Force.
The Deputy Officer In-charge of the department, Mr. Adigun Abdulfatai, after listening to the father of the missing children and also hearing from the officer in charge of the case, explained that as at that time the alleged kidnapper of the children was charged to court, there was nothing else they could do since the girl had been in detention for weeks and could not be kept there longer.
He also explained that the department did all it could to see if they could get the truth from the alleged kidnapper with regard to where she took the children to, but the girl did not admit to stealing the children. He said there about 10 families that came forward at the time to claim that the girl stole their children and she denied all.
There is however a ray of hope for the family of Abdulazeez as the SARS boss has called for the file of Gladys to know its current status and also look for a way to unravel the whereabouts of Kafayat and Farouk.
There seems a possibility that the newly born triplets could unite with their elder siblings.
