The woman and her abducted children
The
family of four-year-old and six-year-old kids, are still in distress
over the fate of the two children who were abducted by their mother's
apprentice and are still yet to be found. A woman identified as Suliat, who is the mother of 4-year-old
Farouk and 6-year-old Kafayat, who were abducted on November 28, 2016,
by the woman’s apprentice, Gladys Austin, is said to have attempted
suicide twice while in Lagos and was recently moved back to her hometown
in Oyo State, where she allegedly attempted suicide again by taking
Sniper.
According to a report by Punch newspaper, the woman's husband,
Fatai Azeez, said the family was at a loss because even after the arrest
of a suspect by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Lagos,
the suspect vehemently denied taking the children away.
In an interview with Suliat, she revealed that Austin (the suspect)
had resumed as an apprentice at her hairdressing workshop in the
Okokomaiko area of Lagos on a Thursday and disappeared with the children
same day while their mother was away.
She presented herself to the family as Grace John. She, however,
met her Waterloo after abducting a girl, identified as Oluwasemilore,
daughter of a bead artist with whom she was working as an apprentice.
The 3-year-old had passed through three different buyers and had
been adopted as the last buyer’s daughter when Austin was arrested in
Badagry.
The incident took SARS operatives to Abia and Anambra states before
she was safely rescued in March 2017, after reported gun battles.
Austin was taken to the SARS office in Lagos, where Fatai and his wife,
Suliat, identified her.
A correspondent who witnessed the parade, reported that she was
mixed with six other ladies and was picked out each time by residents
and neighbours of the family. However, Austin denied taking any other
child aside Oluwasemilore.
The alleged nonchalance of the police reportedly drove Suliat into depression as she allegedly tried to end her life.
Fatai said, “Since that time, she could not bring herself to
understand how she could lose two children in a day. The first attempt
was when she was just throwing herself on the floor and smashed a stool
on her own head. She picked a knife and was about to stab herself when
people restrained her.
“Shortly afterwards, she wrote a suicide note with a knife by
her side. People were, however, able to take the knife from her. When I
could no longer bear it, I asked that she be sent to her village in Oyo
State for proper care. When there was no one around, she drank Sniper.
She has not regained her health since that time.”
He lamented that a SARS operative, Ifeanyi, refused to give
information to the family on the whereabouts of Austin, adding that the
officer said SARS could not help his family because Austin was not
arrested because of them.
“I called and begged him to use all means to get the girl to
confess where she kept my children, but he said the girl denied
abducting the kids.
“Later, when I called to know what was going on, he said he had
already taken the matter to court. When I asked for the name of the
court, he said he never told me he took her to court. He appears to have
been compromised.”
It was learnt that the family obtained the services of a lawyer,
one Sanni Saidi, who wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police,
Lagos State, Fatai Owoseni.
The children’s father, Fatai, alleged that the police did not act
on the petition and his family was forced to approach the Zone 2 Police
Command, Onikan, with another petition, which was assigned to an officer
in Section D7.
“When we got there, the officer demanded money for certain
things, which we gave him. I was going there every day without any
result. At a point, the policeman told me he couldn’t find the case file
again,” he added.
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