Residents of the Kabusa community in the Federal Capital Territory are alarmed following the abduction of three siblings.
Marvelous, Alex, and Rehoboth Sunday were reported missing from their school, Star Child Academy, on Tuesday.
Residents said that their mother went to pick them up from their school in the ECWA One district of Kabusa, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Efforts to find them by their mother, school personnel, and locals were claimed to have failed.
The event provoked a protest by women in the town, who picketed the school and the local police station.
A family friend, Benson Ubong, told the Punch that locals searched every nook and cranny of Kabusa from the day of the tragedy until Wednesday, but the children were not located.
Ubong said, “The father of the three children is my colleague and we live in the same area. Around 1.28pm on Tuesday, we were sitting together and having some conversation when a call from his wife came in. She said she went to the school to pick up the three children, but they were nowhere to be found. The father immediately put a call through to the owner of the school.
“The woman was not really cooperating at that moment; their dad was upset. About 20 minutes later, he left the place of work and dashed to his residence. He then reported the incident at a police station.
“On Wednesday, women in the community, both young and old, protested at the school and the police station. After then, there was information that somewhere around Waru, there were corpses of some children; we went there and there was nothing like that.
“Up till now, we don’t know where they are; their parents and the entire community have been thrown into mourning. The family recently lost one of their children and now all of the surviving children are nowhere to be found. They are two females and one male. The first one is eight years old, the second is six years old and the last is two years old.”
The FCT police spokesperson, DSP Josephine Adeh, confirmed the incident.
She said all the teachers in the school, alongside the proprietor, had been arrested over the matter.
Adeh said, “The matter was reported to us. We have arrested all the teachers and the proprietor of the school. The case has now been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department.”
In a related development, residents of Chukuku, in the Kuje area council of the FCT, protested on Thursday over the area’s ongoing abductions.
Residents who lit bonfires and barricaded the Kuje/Gwagwalada Road pleaded with the Federal Government to intervene in the area’s insecurity.
Vehicles were diverted along the Kuje-Airport Road to Gwagwalada from Kuje as a result of the blockade.
A homeowner, who only gave his first name Austin, claimed robbers were having a field day in the neighborhood.
According to him, the demonstration was sparked by the kidnapping of three locals on Thursday.
He said, “This is getting too much. Bandits have been operating freely in our community. In the early hours of Thursday, they operated here for hours and took away two men and one woman. The residents were angry because of that and decided to protest against the abductions in the area.
“This is not the only incident; week in and week out we experience attacks by bandits in this community. Why do we have a government then if our lives and property are not secured? The government must live up to its task and provide adequate security in the community.”