Matilda Omonaiye/
A four-year-old girl, Aisha Ashabi Taiwo, reportedly went missing during Sunday’s end-of-the-month thanksgiving service at the national headquarters of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Redemption Way, in Ebute-Metta, Lagos.
NewsmakersNG learnt that the victim, alongside her mum and seven-year-old brother were visiting her 60-year-old grandma, who is blind, in Ebute-Metta and the two children had accompanied her to church.
The victim’s uncle, Abdulwasiu Esuola, a lawyer, who spoke to NewsmakersNG, said the weekend visit by Aisha’s family to their grandma was a long-standing ritual, but only the victim’s elder brother usually accompanies her to church due to her blindness.
This last Sunday, however, Aisha uncharacteristically decided to follow them to church, and also partly because their mum, who worships at a different church, was attending the 40th-day Islamic burial rites of a family member.
According to the uncle, children usually worship in a different hall at the RCCG headquarters, but being a thanksgiving Sunday, the children worshipped alongside the adults in the main auditorium.
He said the victim, his brother and their grandma sat next to one another on the same pew until children were invited to the altar for a special prayer.
He said the victim and her brother held hands when they went to the altar, which wasn’t far from the row they were sitting, but they somehow got separated from each other while returning to their seat.
He said it was when the brother returned to where they were seating and couldn’t find the victim that the search for her began, adding that the whole episode happened within a space of three minutes.
Abdulwasiu expressed disappointment with the authorities of the church for their alleged lackadaisical attitude to the incident, especially the admission by their security personnel that the sprawling premises of the headquarters are without CCTV coverage.
According to him, officers at both Denton police station, Ebute-Metta and the Southwest office of the Intelligence Response Squad of the police said it would be extremely difficult to investigate the incident without CCTV footage.
He also condemned the total lack of empathy allegedly displayed by one of the church leaders, identified simply as Pastor Paul, whom he met at the church this morning.
He claimed that the pastor was initially accommodating but later became nasty because of his, Abdulwasiu’s, obvious lack of patience with the manner that the church was handling the manner.
“When I went to the church this morning, I was asked to meet one Pastor Paul. Our conversation started on a good note, but he later said he could not attend to me because a service was going on and he needed to join them at the altar.
“I then suggested that I should come back to see him at 2 pm. But rather than tell the time that would be convenient for him to see me, he replied angrily that how could I just assume he would be free anytime I chose to see him.
“Also, when he saw that I had become angry, he told me that if I had decided to become unruly, I could as well seize the microphone and disrupt their service to register my grievance. It was at that point that I left the place,” Abdulwasiu said.
He described the victim, who will be four next month, as a quiet child, who does mix freely and never leaves the house to play outside.
He also appealed to members of the public with any helpful information to call the following numbers: 08160589698, 08087874055 or report at the nearest police station.
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