Mercy Akande, a 7-year-old girl, was abducted by her mother’s male client.
In Ogun State’s Sango Ota neighborhood, Mercy’s mother runs a Point of Sale (POS) terminal.
A male adult who has not been recognized but is reportedly the mother’s regular client came into the store on Monday, December 23, bought meals for the seven-year-old daughter, and then sent her on an errand to fetch a sachet of water.
The customer came out of the store and tried to get the water sachet from the girl as she was coming back from the errand. At that moment, the girl’s mother caught sight of both of them, but was momentarily sidetracked by other patrons.
The customer and her daughter were nowhere to be seen when the mother turned back to the location where she had seen them.
The mother searched for her daughter right away but was unable to locate her. The male consumer did not answer when they called his phone till his line was unreachable.
On the microblogging site, an X user claiming to be the cousin of the missing girl appealed for the public’s assistance.
He claimed that in addition to being instructed to provide N30,000 in order to track down the man’s phone number, the mother was asked to pay N10,000 in order to report the incident.
“As of right now, work hasn’t even begun. The struggling mom only paid N8000 to write her statement at the station and N2000 to print out pictures of the missing girl.
We have reported the case to a police station in Sango, and she has done so. She was also asked to bring N30,000 so that the guy’s phone number could be tracked. She will be returning there tomorrow to pay.” She must then pay N30,000 and obtain a court affidavit to present to the MTN office in order to track the phone number,” he said.
However, he bemoaned the fact that the holiday had prevented attempts to obtain a court document from succeeding.