The relations of a former Boko Haram captive who escaped from police detention five years ago are crying out saying they want the public to help them with information about the where-about of their son. ELEOJO IDACHABA narrates what led to his abduction by B/Haram, detention by the police and eventual escape.
When a 25-year-old Stanley Abu left his home state of Edo to stay with a relation in Kano in the year 2013, little did anyone know that it would be a journey of no return to Edo again. This is because report reveals that the young man said to be born on January 14, 1994 has been curiously missing since 2015.
According to the report made available to Blueprint by Mr Sule Musa, a relation of the missing Stanley, he disappeared from public glare since 2015 after the police declared him wanted that year following his escape from their detention facility in Kano. He said that right now the family members are worried because they do not know if he is alive or the police have re-arrested him since they earlier declared him wanted.
According to Musa, “Stanley was a victim of Boko Haram brutality in Kano and was wrongly arrested by the police, locked up for a year without trial before he escaped from detention.
While giving details of what happened, he said, “In 2014 while Stanley was returning home from where he was learning furniture making one Saturday evening, he was accosted among other persons by some people; unknown to him, they were Boko Haram members. This was in 2014 when Boko Haram insurgency was at its peak and spreading to other places like Kano as they abduct and initiate individuals for suicide mission targeting public places.
“They took him away to a remote part of the city and asked him if he was a Christian or Muslim to which he replied that he was a Christian. Then, they asked him further to tell them the church he attends to which he replied that he attends the Lady of Fatimah Catholic Church. According to the report we got, they gave him an AK-47 gun and a bomb to detonate in the church the following day. He however refused to carry it out and rather went to a nearby river and dumped the bomb there. From there he went to the nearest Zone 1 police station located at Sharada along the Bayero University Kano road in order to report to the police. When the police sighted him with the gun at the station, they took him for a Boko Haram member and put him in their cell despite his explanation that he was not. This was how he remained in that detention facility for nearly a year,” he said.
Musa said that few days after he failed to return home which was unlike him, they began to look for him everywhere until they found that he was in detention at the Zonea police station in Kano, but said they were not allowed access to him by the police. He said they were considering legal option, but said because of the allegation by the police that he was a Boko Haram accomplice, they did not know what to do.
“While we were contemplating on what to do, that was when news broke out that Boko Haram members invaded the police station and set many prisoners free in retaliation for their members who were in detention there. We were told that Stanley also escaped. Since then, we have not seen him again. Immediately that incident happened, he along with others were declared wanted by the police.
“It is however not proven if the reprisal attack by Boko Haram on the Zone 1 office of the Nigeria police claimed his life or not. Nevertheless, if he is still alive, the public should also alert the nearest police station with vital information about him. This is because we don’t know if he has been re-arrested and now detained or was killed. We the family members and especially his parents are worried. We need to know what has happened to him so that our mind would be at rest,” he said in sobbing mood as he narrated the incident to Blueprint.
The case of Stanley is one among other numerous persons curiously missing as a result of the Boko Haram onslaught in the country.
