A University of Abuja final-year student, Halima Sagir Mahmud, has been declared missing by her family.
The 21-year-old Halima, who is an Electrical Engineering Student at the university, was last seen shortly after she departed its main campus along Airport Road on Tuesday.
The incident occurred less than 24 hours after the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, gave assurances that the FCT Administration was taking steps to address security challenges affecting some sections of the territory.
How it happened
According to her elder sister, Amina, Halima left her parents’ home at Gwagwalada on Tuesday morning for the UniAbuja Main campus to follow up with her undergraduate project work but has yet to return home.
“She was last seen in the morning yesterday as she left for school. She reached out by 3 p.m. saying she was on her way back home (and that) if food was ready. She still didn’t get home after five hours,” she told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview.
Amina explained that the school campus is about 15-minute drive from their parent’s home but that her sister ( Halima) has not made it home since she made the call that she was coming home.
She also said her parents went in search of her at the school campus but that there was no trace of her.
“She has never stayed out past 6 pm (at worst) and we were very worried due to the situation in Abuja presently,” she narrated....[CONTINUE READING HERE ▶▶]
Amina further told this newspaper that they kept calling her phone number upon noticing her late arrival but got no response.
“At about 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, while we were persistently calling her number, someone picked up the call and said the owner of this phone is dead, the owner of this phone is dead and started speaking Hausa. When we were asking where are you, where are you, the person hung up and this person refused to pick up our calls,” she said.
At some point, Amina narrated, the individual would pick up and then place it on the speaker but was whispering in Hausa language what they did not understand.
She said she had gone to the Nigerian Police Force headquarters in Abuja to file an official report and that a police officer immediately helped in tracking her (Ms Halima) phone number only to discover that the call was made on Nasarawa road, Kano State.
“They (the police) said they would drop a full report by afternoon,” she said.The spokesperson of the FCT Police Command, Josephine Adeh, a Superintendent of police, could not be reached for comment. She did not respond to calls to her mobile phone.
Lingering insecurity
Recently, there has been a spike in insecurity across communities of the Federal Capital Territory and other parts of the country, particularly in the North.In Abuja, the spike in the abduction and killing of residents by bandits, especially in Kuje and Bwari Area Councils, has made many residents flee their homes for safety.On Tuesday, the FCT minister, who acknowledged the challenges, urged residents not to panic, as the government has taken measures to address the ugly situation.“All of us are aware of the security situation in FCT, particularly in Bwari and some other areas that we have witnessed security challenges,” Mr Wike said after a close door meeting with security officials in Abuja.
