The distraught parents of Michael Oluwatomiyin Ojelabi, four, who was
kidnapped in front of his school by an unidentified woman six days ago
have spoken out.
Commissioner for Rural Development Cornelius Ojelabi.
they had not received any phone call about his whereabouts.Members of their church held prayers for the boy’s return yesterday.
Michael and his sister, Oyindamola, were standing at their school gate,
waiting for their mother, when the woman, who gave her name as Aunt Joy,
said she was asked to bring them home.
“I was shocked when my eight-year-old daughter told me her class
teacher asked her to sweep her classroom. The teacher denied but three
of my daughter’s friends said it was true. It was when she finished
sweeping she took her brother to the school gate. Oyindamola told me
that when they got to the gate, the woman, whom she described as tall,
fat and dark-skinned, said my wife asked her to pick them. My daughter
said she wasn’t going to release her brother but the woman asked her to
inform her class teacher she had taken Michael. When she got back, they
were nowhere to be found.“She went home to inform my wife and when they returned to the scene,
shop owners said they saw the woman on a motorcycle but they didn’t
know she was a kidnapper. We went to Ojo police station. We have been
searching for him. I believe we will find him by God’s grace because I
suspect nobody,” he said.
Ojelabi said when he got the information, he reported the case to
Adoff Police Station. He has also written a statement at the Ojo Police
Station.
He said: “My wife is a trader and she takes them to school every
morning. The reason she was late to pick them on that day was because
she was preparing their lunch. She didn’t want them to return home
without having anything to eat.”
When asked his last moment with his son that day, Ojelabi said:
“I
was getting dressed for work when he came to my room and said ‘daddy,
good morning’. I replied ‘good morning’ and said I was off to work. He
is my close paddy. I miss him these past few days because he was always
awake whenever I returned from work. I keep thinking of my son’s
condition. I keep thinking if he will be given his favourite biscuit and
tea. We have been living in this environment for over 16 years and we
have never witnessed incidents as this.”
Michael’s mother, Mrs Elizabeth Ojelabi, was said to have gone to the church.
The school’s head teacher, Olalekan Kazeem, said he was still in
shock adding that the class teacher said she never asked Oyindamola to
sweep.
“We are security conscious here because I remember there was a time
their father was not allowed to take his children because he wasn’t a
familiar face in the school. I pray we find him because that is our
joy,” he said.
The Ojelabis are pleading with the public for information on their boy’s whereabouts.
They can be contacted on: 08024371127, 08028287574.