Three families in Umuahia, Abia state were thrown into panic on Saturday when they realised that four of their children had been taken away by a woman who just packed in three days earlier.
The tenants, all traders known as Madam Ngozi Kingsley; Madam Ifeanyi Uduma, sister to Ngozi Kingsley and Madam Blessing Peter Obasi from Nwoke compound, Elugwu Nguzu Edda in Ebonyi State.
According to The Punch, the women claimed that the suspected tenant, whose identity remains a mystery, packed into the building on Thursday, December 15 along with another person said to be her sister, friend or an accomplice.
It was learnt that she packed in with only a camp gas, a 6-inch small foam and a mat, with a little bag suspected to be her dresses.
“Within the first two days, they endeared themselves into the heart of the rest of their neighbours as women who love children by playing with them, buying them gifts as well as sending them on errands, and at a time, went to buy brooms and other items with one of the grown up children that later escaped abduction by the suspects”, one of the women said.
Also speaking, Madam Uduma said she treaded with caution not suspecting any foul intention by the suspect.
She said on one occasion, one of her children came out of the house of the suspects wearing a white cloth with red spots, which she said she quickly removed from the child and was queried by the suspects why she did so.
She narrated; “That Saturday, she bought them drinks and gave them biscuits and latter gave them food to eat. The suspect also gave another tenant in the house food, and even me.
“Later, they dressed my last child with white cloth with red spots like flower. My child came to me excited to show me. I removed the cloth and dressed my child with her cloth and the woman came and asked me why I removed the cloth from my child. I told her that I wanted my child to wear my own cloth.
“Later, I saw her accomplice moving out with a sack bag with the clothes packed and the white ones on top and I asked her where she was going to. She said she wanted to go and buy things at the city centre while she had told another woman in the compound that she was going to give her sister clothes she bought for her. This one is a little slim while the main suspect is dark, fat and had bleaching marks on her legs.
“When the other one left, the fat one came out to where the children were playing that Friday evening, the children rallied around her, playing and demanding drinks. I left to fetch water and came back not to see them. I sent someone to go and know where the woman took the children and they were nowhere to be seen. That was how I started looking for them.”
