A woman accused of abducting three-year-old Mohammed Naziru allegedly feigned insanity to avoid disclosing the child’s whereabouts.
Naziru was taken on Friday, January 10, 2024, in the Iwaya area of Lagos, after he and his eight-year-old sister had finished prayers at the mosque. The suspect, dressed in a hijab to blend in, gave Naziru’s sister N500 to buy ice cream and took Naziru with her. When the sister returned, both the woman and Naziru had vanished.
A search was conducted, but Naziru was not found. Days later, on January 13, the sister saw the woman in the community and raised an alarm. The suspect attempted to flee but was caught by a mob and beaten before being handed over to the police.
At the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), the woman pretended to be mentally unstable to avoid revealing Naziru’s location. The boy’s father, Alhaji Idris Adamu, expressed frustration over the woman’s refusal to cooperate and called on authorities to intensify efforts to locate his son.
Detectives plan to take the woman to a psychiatric hospital to assess her mental health.
