PUNCH Metro reports the family members of a 15-year-old girl, Rita Clement, say they have not known peace of mind since Thursday when she was abducted by unidentified persons while on her way to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos State. It was learnt that Clement, who lived with her relatives on Gboyega Kilo Street in the Ojodu Berger area, and had UTME registration number 65061660GJ, was to sit for the exam at 6.30am on that day.
Our correspondent, who obtained Clement’s examination printout, gathered that the examination centre was the West African Examination Council, International office on Plot B, Lateef Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Lagos. It was learnt that the teenager, who sat for her Senior Secondary Certificate Examination last year, had left home around 5.30am for Agidingbi.
Our correspondent gathered that at about 5pm, Clement sent a text message to her mother’s mobile phone, raising the alarm that she had been abducted and she did not know the location where she was taken to. The matter was said to have been reported at the Ojodu Police Division on Friday and had been transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja.
In the text message which Clement’s uncle, Emeka Orazulike, showed our correspondent, the teenager wrote that the abductors had seized her phone since morning and she only managed to write a text through someone’s assistance. She wrote:
“Mummy, they took my phone and beat me up inside the bus. Mummy, I don’t know where they took me to. They made me sleep and said they will kill me if I ran. Someone gave me my phone, saying I must return it before they came back. Mummy, please save me, please.”
The uncle, who worked as a pharmacist, said it was through the text message that the family got to know that Clement was not missing, but abducted. He said:
“Rita (Clement) finished from a college on Aina Street in the Ojodu area. She just concluded her SSCE; we then enrolled her for the UTME. Her father lives in Enugu. The examinations board gave her that Thursday, by 6.30am, to sit for her exam. She was to sit at a centre in the Agidingbi area. On that day, as I was preparing for work around 6am, she met and told me that she was set to leave for the venue.
“I gave her N1,000 when she told me the centre was at Agidingbi. She would use only N100 for transport. I then left for work. As I was coming back around 6.30pm, her mother called that she forwarded a message to my telephone. I then checked my phone and saw the scary message.”
“I first went to the Area F Command, Ikeja, and was about making a statement when the Area Commander directed me to the Ojodu Police Division. We reported the matter on Friday at Ojodu, and the police there radioed other stations.”
Orazulike added that when they called the girl’s phone, it rang out on Thursday, adding that it had been switched off by Friday.
“She did sit for that exam. The abductors might have whisked her away in the bus she boarded on that morning. She was used to going out. When she wrote her WAEC, her centre was at Giwa Oke Aro, Agbado. She went there with her friends.”
“That was why when she mentioned that she was going to Agidingbi for the UTME, I did not nurse any fear because it was just two bus stops from our area. If we knew that anything would happen, I would have taken her there myself,” he added.
Our correspondent learnt that the Divisional Police Officer in Ojodu took the family members to the SARS office, Ikeja, on Monday and the SARS commander assured them that he would detail his men to rescue the girl.
However, the family had yet to hear from the police as of Wednesday. The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, had yet to reply to a text message sent to her phone on the abduction.