A 15-year-old girl, Rita Clement was abducted by
unidentified persons last Thursday while on her way to sit
for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in
Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos State. Her family members have
expressed how they have not known peace of mind since
the incident.
PUNCH Metro 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.
Their 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.
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 Punch, 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.
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 by Punch.
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