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The Ogun State Police Command has reacted to reports alleging that its officers in the Sango police division demanded N40,000 from a complainant to investigate a suspected kidnapping case.
An X-user had cried out over the abduction of a 7-year-old girl identified as Mercy Akande, allegedly by a customer at her mum’s shop in Sango Ota where she runs a PoS machine business. According to the X user, the suspect who is a frequent customer at the woman’s shop had on December 23 visited again under the pretence of wanting to carry out a transaction. Sadly, he was able to distract the mum and whisked the little girl away to an undisclosed location.
‘’My cousin is missing. She was kidnapped by a stranger on the 23rd of December, 2024.
The mom, my aunty, does POS business at Sango, Ogun State. She has a male customer that usually comes to withdraw money and buy recharge cards. He doesn’t stay in the area. He became friends with the little girl and was always buying her food and gifting her money whenever he came to the store.
On the 23rd morning, he came to the store, bought food for himself and the little girl as usual, the mom was busy attending to other customers.
He sent the little girl to go get pure water for him, ( a 7 year old girl). On her way back, he approached her half way to get the pure water from her. The mom saw this and wasn’t comfortable with it but was distracted by the attention from other customers.
By the time she turned towards the daughter’s direction to check what was happening, the guy and her daughter were nowhere to be found.
They searched everywhere for them but to no avail. She tried calling the customer (she had his phone number) he picked and said he was at Sango under bridge and that he was going to call her back. Up till now he has refused to answer his call. Now the number is no longer reachable.
We still cannot find my cousin. This is the phone number of my aunty’s customer, the kidnapper: 07072823833.”
In a follow-up post, the X-user accused the police of demanding N10,000 to report the case and N30,000 to track the number of the suspect”.
Reacting to the allegation, the command’s spokesperson, SP Omolola Odutola, in a statement released, said contrary to the allegations, there was no demand for forty thousand naira.
‘’However, the police officer who received the complaint from the counter acted unprofessionally, as the matter was not escalated to the divisional police officer, which is necessary for appropriate attention. Internal disciplinary measures have been meted out against the erring police officers for failure to notify the Divisional police officer (DPO) of the magnitude of the report.
The Divisional police officer has since reached out to the victim’s family, who have provided valuable information and efforts to locate the kidnappers and rescue the victim unhurt have commenced.”
Odutola added that the public is urged to disregard this misinformation and to assist the Ogun State Police Command by sharing the pictures of the kidnapped victim to help facilitate her safe return. The command has also solicited anonymous information from well-meaning individuals to assist the police track and arresting the kidnappers.
