Suspected Kidnapper Locks 10-year-old Girl In A Freezer

Mother luck snatched a ten -year-old girl from the jaws of death after she was locked up in a fridge by her captor to await night fall before she is slaughtered for ritual.

Kenneth Uba, a wholesale rice seller at the popular Marian Market in Calabar the Cross River State capital, southsouth Nigeria on Tuesday allegedly lured the little girl who was hawking banana into his building site at 2, Obot Close, State Housing Calabar.

A source at 2, Obot Close told P.M.NNEWS that Kenneth, who along with others was working on his storey building which looks like a warehouse, lured the girl into the premises on the pretext that he wanted to buy banana.

“When the girl entered the premises he quickly locked the gate and grabbed the girl and bundled her into a disused refrigerator,” the source said.

The source, a lady who says she is fro m Edo State, said she was present at the time of the incident.

According to her, when the girl did not come out of the premises after a long period, the little boy with whom she was hawking banana began to cry.

“One man who was passing by asked the little boy why he was crying and he told the man that his sister with whom they were hawking went inside (pointing at the building) to sell banana and has since not come out,” the lady said.

The man, our source said knocked on the gate several times but Kenneth refused to open the gate.

This raised the man’s suspicion as to what might have happened to the girl, and he had to mobilise others who joined in knocking on the gate and eventually forced it open.

“When the gate was forced open, Kenneth was standing beside the fridge and barking like a dog while the girl’s banana basin was kept some metres away and when the people asked where the girl was, he said he did not know,” our source added.

According to her, when the people asked what was inside the fridge, the Enugu State-born trader said it was his dog and when they asked him to open the fridge, he threatened that if the dog escaped, he would hold them responsible and they said “yes” and when the fridge was eventually opened, they saw the girl inside.

The crowd, she said, held the man and called the police.

After he was taken away by the police the mob set blaze the bus that was parked inside the building and the Toyota Corolla car parked outside.

At the State Housing Police Station, the Station Officer there said he was not aware of the incident while the Acting Police Public Relations Officer for the Cross River State Police Command ASP Hogan Bassey said the arrest of the kidnapper was carried out by policemen from the Zone Six Police Command.

“I have called somebody who knows, and he says the man was arrested by policemen from Zone Six and that the man was receiving treatment along with the girl,” Hogan Bassey said.

When P.M.NEWS visited the Zone Six Police Command, the Zonal Police Public Relations Officer was said to be attending a function in the AIG’s office.

By Emma Una/Calabar