Someone told me to bring my madam's child – Housemaid

Hours after a 22-month-old girl, Mayowa Aweda, was abducted by a 14yrs old housemaid at Unity Estate, Idimu, Lagos, men of the Lagos Police Command found the two of them under the Oshodi bridge around 2am.

The housemaid, Christianah, a young girl from Iseyin, Oyo State, who was taken in by the Aweda family and put in school, confessed that she was told by one Matthew to bring the little girl.

According to her, the yet-to-be-identified Matthew took both of them on a motorcycle to Oshodi and instructed them to sleep under the bridge till the following morning.

“He told me that we would be moving early the following morning,” the girl told the police.

The little girl’s father, Leo Aweda, told Punch that when policemen from Bolade-Oshodi division saw the two girls under the bridge, Christianah told them that both of them were from the same parents and that they had nowhere to go.

“She told them she did not understand Yoruba whereas she is from Iseyin. The police thought they were taking care of abandoned children,” he said.

Christianah might have had a change of mind while in police custody and admitted that they were from Unity Estate, Egbeda, but when the police took her to locate where she came from, she took the police to two different schools, who denied knowing her.

Aweda said, “She deliberately avoided the school where we put her, which my daughter also attended. It was while the policewoman was following her around for about three hours that some neighbours spotted them.

“When we were notified, we followed them back to the station and that was where she told us that one Matthew took them on a motorcycle from Egbeda to Oshodi.

“Some people told us that she might have been hypnotised by people who wanted to abduct our child. When she left home with my daughter, she did not pick any of the things we bought for her except a rechargeable lamp. While we were searching for her, someone spotted her around 9pm somewhere with our girl. The person said she had N500 with her out of which she bought a sausage roll for my daughter.”

Aweda said his family took Christianah in after they needed a housemaid and an acquaintance told them of a girl from a poor family that needed help.

Family had asked the police to release Christianah to her family.