Female tenants disappear with neighbours’ 3 children in Ebonyi From Wilson Okereke, Afikpo On July 29, 2025, four yet-to-be-identified ladies were said to have kidnapped four-year-old girl, Miss Precious Orogwu and two others at Nkaliki Echara, Abakaiki Local Government, Ebonyi State. The distressed father, Samuel Orogwu, an indigene of Ameta Umuoghara in Ezza North LGof, said he only came back from work that evening and discovered that Precious and his one-year and six months old son, Godwin, alongside their neighbour’s daughter were taken away by the strange ladies. He disclosed that the suspected kidnappers comprising a woman and three young ladies merely packed into their compound on July 26, 2025 while they carried out the criminal plot three days later in the guise of providing the kids with biscuits. According him, the parents waited patiently for the ladies to return with their three children, all to no avail. After exhausting their patience, they entered the ladies’ apartment and discovered that the room was empty. It was at this point that they went and informed the landlord of the development but he allegedly denied of knowing the people. He said that the people communicated with pidgin English while the eldest person spoke Igbo Language, adding that they were idle within the period perhaps to monitor the movement of the parents of the children. Orogwu who called for assistance from the government and members of the public for the recovery of the three stolen children disclosed that the landlord of the house and two property agents who were involved in renting the apartment to the new tenants were already invited for questioning at the Central Police Station, Abakaliki. Daily Sun gathered from his wife who said she was in a church programme when the incident happened that the family was barely seven days old in the compound: “The eldest lady among the suspects was dark-complexioned with appreciable height.” Mrs. Chidimma Chukwuezi, their neighbour whose daughter was stolen too, said she did not know the suspects were monitoring her movement until when she returned from Rice Mill and found out that her daughter, Miracle, was stolen. She said the criminals gave her three-year-old Nursery 1 child and the other victims a bath before they were hurriedly taken away around 4.00pm of that fateful Tuesday: “When one of the property agents was confronted by Mrs. Orogwu over the identities of the women, the man introduced one as a trader at International Market but surprisingly the same man began to deny of knowing the same person at the police station.” This was not the first time that children were stolen in this manner in Abakaliki and its environs. In August last year, a 40-year-old woman, Blessing Ngozi Abia, who claimed to be a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member was sentenced to death by hanging by a court for stealing two children in Ebonyi State. The woman who hails from Imo State was said to have trafficked two kids of her neighbours on January 22, 2024. She disguised as a corps member and given her name as Mercy Francis (fake name) when she approached a landlord for accommodation in Nwezenyi, Izzi Local Government. She paid six months’ rent to the owner of the apartment. The landlord and his family as well as other tenants in the compound did not have the slightest inkling that their newest neighbour was actually a criminal who paraded as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She had played a good person and was always seen playing video with her phone to the children in the compound which made everyone to feel at home with her. Few days later, she requested that two kids; Ngozi Nwibo, 7, and Chinaza Nwachukwu, 3, accompanied her to buy recharge card at the Nwezenyi Junction, from where she made away with the children. The troubled parents who had waited for their return till night, reported the incident to the police who launched investigation into the matter. One of the victims, seven-year-old Ngozi Nwibo, was rescued in Oba, Anambra State, where the woman was arrested by security agents and brought to Abakaliki for investigation and prosecution by the Ebonyi State Police Command. While in police custody, she allegedly made confessional statement that led to the rescue of her second victim, Chinaza Nwachukwu in Lagos where she had sold the three-year-old boy to a woman. The lady who bought the boy reportedly escaped while Nwachukwu was rescued by police operatives. Abia was arraigned in the court in the suit number HIB/10c/2024, and Justice Ruth Oke found her guilty of the offence and sentenced her to death by hanging.