The family of a six-month-old baby, Faaiz, has appealed for help to locate him after he was allegedly abducted from his mother’s room through a window in Oyo State.
The incident reportedly occurred in the early hours of September 16, when the baby was sleeping beside his mother, Mrs Asimau Olasunkanmi, in their three-bedroom apartment located at Erunmu in the Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State.
The distraught mother, said she discovered that the baby was missing when she woke up to breastfeed him before the early morning prayer.
Speaking with PUNCH Metro, Olasunkanmi said she initially searched the room and the house before discovering that the net covering the window had been severed.
“I wanted to observe the routine by picking up my baby to breastfeed him, only for me to look beside me and he was nowhere to be found. I checked everywhere, but I could not find my baby,” she said.
According to her, one of her children, who was sleeping close to the window, noticed the damaged net, prompting her to inspect the area.
“I looked in the same direction and discovered the net had been severed, indicating that my baby had been abducted,” she added.
Olasunkanmi expressed surprise at how the suspected abductors could have taken the baby without leaving other visible signs of entry into the house.
“There was no sign someone entered the house, aside from the net that was severed. It’s a three-bedroom room, but we sleep in two.
It was just me and my three children inside the house. We don’t have fences,” she said.
Appealing for assistance, the mother described the uncertainty surrounding her child’s whereabouts as unbearable.
“I want help in whatever way; please support me. There’s a Yoruba adage that says a dead child is better than a missing child,” she said.
“Now I can’t find the corpse nor my living child.”
The father, Taiwo Isiak, said the family reported the incident to the Ogungbade Police Station on the morning it occurred, adding that the case was subsequently transferred to the Anti-Kidnapping Squad in Dugbe, Ibadan.
He said the police initially visited the area to question residents before transferring the investigation to the anti-kidnapping unit.
Isiak, however, expressed concern over the lack of recent updates from the police, saying the family had been searching for the baby since the incident.
“We’ve been on it since then and today makes it 40 days. We’ve not heard from the police in the past two weeks. The last time we spoke, they said they are still working on it and will give us feedback,” he said.
A family friend, Akinyode Waliyulah, also confirmed that the matter had been reported to the police and other security agencies, including the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
Waliyulah said the window through which the suspected abductors allegedly gained access to the house had no burglary-proof protection.
“Someone entered the house through the window. They severed the net covering the window, but unfortunately, the window does not have burglary protection, just an aluminium window,” he said.
He added that the family had continued to pursue the matter through the relevant security agencies, expressing hope that the baby would be found.