Imo: Police yet to recover child stolen by uncle

Operatives of Imo State Police command are yet to recover a child allegedly stolen by her uncle.

The child was allegedly stolen from her mother, identified as Chidinma Anyanwu, by her uncle, a 50-year-old man, Enyinna Ibekwe on July 7 at Onicha in Ezinihite Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State.

Ibekwe, a native of Umueleagwa Onicha, Ezinihite Mbaise LGA, had, on that penultimate day, collected the child belonging to his niece.

He went out with the child. But on his return, he did not come back with the child, our reporter learnt.

When the child’s mother demanded for her child, he asked her to follow him to get her child, but on getting to a lonely place, Ibekwe shot her in the chest, it was learnt.

Thinking she was dead, he absconded and abandoned her beside a borrow pit. But the woman however, miraculously found her way to the road and sought for assistance.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, SP Orlando Ikeokwu, said, on Sunday, that even though Ibekwe had been arrested and is currently being prosecuted, the police were still searching for the whereabouts of the child.

Ikeokwu, who was reacting to criticism from a non-governmental organisation, Genius Eyes International Foundation, that the police were shielding the suspect because his wife is a personnel of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NCSDC), said that the matter was personally being handled by the State Police Commissioner, Rabiu Ladodo, who had mandated a deputy Commissioner of Police to handle the matter.

He said that was why the matter was transferred to the SCID on 18/7/2019, together with the suspect and exhibit.

He added that the command had at no time in the course of the investigation been biased, as the suspect was immediately arrested and still in custody for attempted murder and child trafficking, stressing that the command was making efforts to recover the stolen/sold child of the victim (Anyanwu Chidinma).

He said: “It is therefore, insulting for anyone or group to claim that the wife of the suspect (a personnel of the NSCDC) is using any connection(s) whatsoever to suppress a matter of which the Commissioner of Police is directly supervising.”