A two-year-old girl, Chinaza
Agwa mysteriously disappeared from her parents’ bedside in their residence in the Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos State on March 6.
Chinaza is the last child of Mr. and
Mrs. Kenneth and Chinyere Agwa whose 14-year old marriage has yielded
four children namely; Emeka, 13, Chioma 9, Obinna, 7 and Chinaza, 2.
Recounting how Chinaza disappeared, the mother, Mrs. Chinyere said
that the last time she saw her daughter was around 1am on the fateful
March 6, adding that Chinaza was wearing a red trouser and a top.
“The last time I saw my last daughter was on 6th of March, around
1am. I had just fed her with tea and bread. She was wearing red trousers
with a shirt. The only thing she could say was to call mummy, daddy and
brother. She is a girl that when you go close to her, you would not
regret it. She plays with everybody,” she said.
After feeding her daughter, Chinyere went to bed and slept off. It
was not until 4am when she woke up to check on her daughter that she
noticed her disappearance from her side.
“It was around 4am when I woke up from sleep but I did not see my
daughter. I woke my husband up and he told me to check her in the other
room where her brothers and sister laid. I did as my husband told me,
but I did not see her. I continued to search for her. I went outside the
room to search for her, yet I didn’t see her”.
Chinyere did not limit her search for Chinaza to the rooms.
Immediately, she decided to call the attention of her neighbours to
her predicament. As she was stepping out of her shanty of a house;
built with woods and covered with polythene, she noticed something
strange, the front door of her makeshift apartment, was widely opened.
It was an unusual scenario.
“I began to shout. I woke all my neighbours.
I urged them to help me check if my daughter walked into their houses.
But I discovered my front door was opened. I hardly leave the front
door opened. I was the one who closed the compound gate and our door
that night. I could not have left the door opened,” she wondered.
While her neighbours were wailing, Chinyere noticed that the gate to
the compound was also tampered with.
“The gate was forcefully opened.
Our neighbours passed underneath the gate. Some of my neighbours came
home around 1 am. Underneath the gate there is a large hole there that
one can pass through into the compound,” she disclosed.
Shedding light on the matter was Chinaza’s father, Kenneth Agwa, who
said his daughter’s disappearance was like abduction by an in-house
friend.
He alleged that their door was opened when they woke up, disclosing
that his door can be opened from outside, even when locked from within.
“They could enter my apartment through the main door. Anybody close
to me in the compound knows how to open it. You can stretch your hand
over the door and unhook the door. When we lost our key there is a place
I cut the door. All the boys in the compound come to my house to charge
their phones, therefore, they know how to unlock the door. That day,
they used the same method to steal the baby away,” he narrated.
Kenneth said that they searched for Chinaza till daybreak.
Thereafter, she took h search to the streets, close by bushes and
neighbouring communities.
“When we didn’t see our child at dawn, we started to look for her
everywhere. We even went to bushes to search for her. We went to
neighbouring communities also. We also went to the barracks on our way
back, we saw estate landlords who have joined the search. They group
themselves and searched with us. They also searched inside the forest.
It was in the night that DPO Trade Fair Police arrived with patrol van,
it was then he said that we must come to the police to make proper
statement,” he stated.
Neighbours as suspects
The houses in the compound were built in a semi-circular style, with
each house fused to the other. As such, it is possible to hear
discussions in the next apartment. Kenneth who is also the caretaker
of the compound said that before his daughter’s disappearance, there has
been relative peace in the house. He said that in the last five years
he has resided in the compound, there has not been a case of theft or
anything related. To him, the only problem in the compound has been one
of his co-tenants, simply known as Chinonso.
“Before the disappearance of my daughter, there has not been any case
of missing cloth or theft situation. I have been living in the house
for five years. I am the caretaker of the house. I have been safe
there, but since all these area boys started bringing different people
there, things have not been the same. Now, there is no peace, they fight
and quarrel all the time. I have time s without number, told them to
evict the boys they brought to the house,” he stated.
Saturday Sun gathered that two of Kenneth’s neighbours are
currently in police custody. One of the suspects, Chinonso was arrested
for making an ambitious statement. It was gathered that Chinonso had
boasted, in Kenneth’s presence, that he would make money, by hook or by
crook. Kenneth alleged that Chinaza was very close to Chinonso.
“Towards the beginning of last year, Chinonso said that he would make
money by all means; that if his wish does not come to past that year
that he can use anybody or anything to have riches. Since he made that
comment, his ways have not been straight, he has become more notorious
than ever. He fights and quarrels with everybody. He has threatened
virtually everybody in the compound. He even said that he was going to
kill one of our neighbours. The most painful part of this is that he is
very nice to my children. He would take Chinaza away and get her things
and return in peace. Sometimes he would play with all of them together.
He is not someone that will carry my baby and she would start to cry. My
baby plays and eats in his house. My baby loves the boy. She likes him
to feed her. He has lived a year and some months with us,” he stated.
The second suspect in custody is Onyeka. While Chinonso is a
co-tenant, Onyeka lives in the next compound. Onyeka was arrested
because his shoe was seen in the compound on the day of Chinaza’s
disappearance.When Kenneth finally found him, after abandoning his
house, Onyeka denied owning the brown shoe.
“He lives at the back of my house. When you were coming, if you had
noticed, there was a bush, in that bush, he is building a shanty. A day
before my daughter disappeared, Onyeka lodged a complaint to my wife
about our neighbours’ throwing dirt into his compound. I went out and
told him that I would take care of it. That very day, he was wearing a
brown shoe with jeans knickers. When we woke in the morning and were
looking for our baby, we saw a brown shoe.
We traced the owner up to the
area boys who identified that the shoe belonged to Onyeka. They said
that it belonged to Ofuola meaning ‘I am missing’ which is another
nickname Onyeka has. I looked for him for more than a week. A boy I see
everywhere before the disappearance of my baby. It was by the grace of
the area boys that the police arrested him. He had been in hiding after
the incident happened. When we got to the police, he denied owning the
shoe but the police asked him to wear it, low and behold it sized him,”
he stated.
Kenneth is pleading with the two suspects or whoever is with his
child to release her and save the two boys in custody. “If I see my
baby, they can be released,” he stated.
When Chinyere was asked how she has been holding up, she said she is
still expecting her baby to walk into the house through the front door.
It is the same hope she is giving her other children who have continued
to ask her about their sister.
“I have been telling them that they
should be calm that their sister would return. They know that their
sister is missing,”