The Edo State Police Command has confirmed the rescue of two siblings who were abducted by their nanny in Lagos State on Monday.
Reports revealed that the suspect, identified as Precious, absconded with the minors – a four-year-old boy and two-year-old girl – from Lagos to Benin City, the Edo State capital.
The victim’s abroad-based parents were on a visit to Nigeria when they incident happend.
Addressing reporters in Benin on Saturday, the Police Public Relations Officer in Edo, Bello Kontongs, said, “Operatives of the Anti-Kidnapping and Cybercrime Unit on 26 at about 15:35 hours arrested some suspects for the abduction of children from Lagos down to Benin City.
“The principal suspect is believed to be the nanny – or what we normally call house help of the children of Mr Ibe who has been staying with his family and taking care of the children.
“Using her familiarity with the children, she decided to allow the devil to take the better part of her by abducting these two children … of the same father and ran down to Benin City to meet one lady – Biva Idaho, 35, who is also suspected to be the receiver and her husband, Joseph Obaze, 45, at a remote area along Ekenwan Road.”
Precious was said to have camped the kids with a suspected accomplice, Idaho, who claimed they met on Instagram and had been video chatting as friends alongside the two kids over the past two years.
Idaho said that her husband had no knowledge of the crime, adding that Precious had claimed to be the mother of the children.
Speaking further, Katongs said that the police were attacked by group of armed men, claiming to be members of a vigilance group, in the course of the rescue operation.
“The children were rescued alongside two other children in the compound that we cannot establish who the parents are.
“Mr Joseph decided to raise an alarm that our operatives are kidnappers and those unknown vigilante officials who were fully armed with pump-action surrounded our policemen and forcefully took over the other two children that we met in the compound and also used machetes on our police operatives,” the command’s spokesman said.
The police boss reiterated that the command would not allow miscreants stop security operatives from carrying out their legal duty.
