A 36 years old man, Abdullahi Sheriff, whose wife and two children were kidnapped in his residence on Friday evening in Zango Daji, a community in outskirts of Lokoja, has cried out to the Kogi state government and security agencies to help rescue his family members.
Recall that gunmen invaded the residence of Sheriff at Zone 12 in Zango Daji on Friday evening at about 8.45pm and abducted his wife and two children.
Narrating his ordeals while speaking with newsmen on Sunday, Sheriff who is a struggling young man said he had to go and obtain a loan to complete part of his house due to the pressures from his landlord who has jerked up the rent and parked to the new house on 18 December last year with his family.
He said everything went smoothly until Friday evening when he rushed out to get some food items for his family as he received call from one of his wives who told him to stay away for a while as gunmen were shooting sporadically in his compound.
Sheriff said he immediately swung into action and went to the Vigilante Office in Zango but was asked to go and report first at the police station which he immediately did but was surprised the police said they could not do anything as their vehicle was not on ground.
“I again raced back to the Vigilante Office and they told me that they could not act except their oga gave them an order to do so. I was there for more than 30 minutes trying to call their oga to no avail while the kidnappers were still in my house shooting sporadically.
“At last the Army came in but it was already late. My senior wife, Abidat Sheriff, 35 years old who was just discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, was abducted with my daughter Zainab Sheriff who is one year eight months old and my five year old son, Mubarak.
“Mubarak was abducted naked without any clothes nor shoe on him.
“The Army then traced the kidnappers into the forest. I followed them and we were seeing some torch lights on the mountain which made the leader of the Army to urged them to pursue vigorously, but suddenly we started hearing another sporadic gunshots at our back and we paused to trace where the gunshots were coming from only to discover it was another group of vigilante firing shots.
“This actually distracted us as the Army could not trace anything again which made them to suspend the pursuit till the following day.
“However, when I waited in the morning without seeing any one, I and some of my friends went inside the forest to comb the area for more than five hours before I was called by the police to come home and give my statement.
“Meanwhile, some people drew our attention to an uncomplicated building along the bush path where they dumped Zainab, my one year eight months old daughter who had cried and cried right in that area where there are dangerous snakes,” he naratted.
Also speaking to newsmen, the second wife, Mrs Faiza Aliba Sheriff who was in the house when the kidnapers came, said she was saved by mother luck as she just went into the inner room to prepare the food of her sucking baby when the kidnappers invaded into their parlour.
She said immediately they entered she put off the light, held the mouth of her baby tightly and laid under the bed. She said her first born, a three year old Nazirat, was also abducted but she kept on crying ferociously before they were angered and threw her out of the window.
Faiza said she later managed to escape through the back door where she saw one of the children hiding in the store fidgeting, adding she had to crawl with the children into the thick darkness running far away from house before a good Samaritan took them into his house till day break.
Sheriff, who broke down and wept profusely, called on the office of the National Security Adviser to provide helicopter and drones to trace the kidnappers and also called on the Army and other security agencies to do all they can to rescue his wife and child who have spent two days in captivity.
Meanwhile, as at the time of filing in this report, the kidnappers had not called to demand for any ransom.
