Crime
#JusticeForChristianah: Story Of FUNAAB Student Kidnapped And Murdered By Abductor
A 300-level student from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Christiana Idowu who was kidnapped between Ikorodu and Yaba in Lagos State, has reportedly been killed by her abductor.
According to report, Christiana left her home in the Itaoluwo area of Ikorodu to travel to the University of Lagos in Yaba, where she was undergoing her industrial training when she was abducted by kidnappers.
The suspect has since been arrested after combined efforts from security agencies.
In a now-viral post on X, a user named @letter_to_jack shared that intelligence agents were able to track down the abductor using the BVN and bank account information associated with the ransom payments made by the family.
The tweet read, “On the 19th of August 2024, Christiannah Idowu was declared missing after her parents were contacted by her abductors using her own WhatsApp contact.
“The first contact with the parent was established around 8:49 pm after which they sent photos of the victim in captivity to them using the WhatsApp ‘view once’ feature.
“The abductors requested a ransom fee of N1,500,000. Christiannah’s parents raised N350,000 immediately. The abductor then requested that the money be sent to a bet account through a bank deposit channel. (Info reserved for now)
“After receiving the money, on the 22nd of August, the abductor requested that the bank statement of the sender be forwarded to his email (withheld).
“On the 23rd of August, the family complied. Immediately after that, the abductor stopped communicating with the parents.
“Meanwhile, on the 22nd of August, some amount was sent to the GTB account of Christiannah and the amount was then withdrawn into the Wema bank account belonging to the main suspect ( Name withheld for now).
“Investigation by intelligence operatives began on the 26th to unravel details of the account number.
“By the 29th, intelligence operatives had confirmation from the bank that the BVN linked to the masked Betting account allegedly belonged to the account owner (name withheld for now) who also operates the Wema Bank (account no withheld for now).
“Further investigation revealed that he was able to withdraw the sum of 100,000 from the betting account before agents got the bet company to lock the account.
“Armed by this information, operatives began an investigation into the suspect whom they observed to have a mutual relationship with Christiannah Idowu, especially judging by Instagram posts as they both commented on each other’s pages.
“The crazy thing is: the same account number used to launder some amount directly from Christiannah’s account has been posted on Twitter once to “beg for a give away free money.
“With all this information at hand, the operatives began to track down his cell phone activities and text messages. The cell phone tracking led them to his parent’s house, somewhere in IKORODU.
“Operatives then got confirmation of his presence in the building through active tracking of his mobile device. Immediately, gallant personnel of the Nigerian Army 174bn swooped in on the suspect to conduct an arrest.
“After the arrest, damning evidence was seen with the suspect and this includes the victim’s blue ITEL A56 with IMEI:35230.
“Also, in his phone are details of the money moved and also details confirming he owns the Betting account that was locked. It was registered with his phone number.
“On his phone, they found an interaction between his email and the email address that has been interacting with the family of the deceased.
“After reviewing the evidence, the suspect was then taken into custody to enable the operatives to conduct further investigations. Upon reviewing this evidence, the suspect was successfully taken into custody for necessary action.
“On September 3, the suspect reportedly confessed to the father and the soldiers that he killed the girl and buried her in their house.
“There is also a new story awaiting further confirmation that in 2018, the suspect’s ex-girlfriend was killed in the same manner.
Also in 2020, the suspect’s biological sister met the same fate, and the same thing happened to Christiannah in 2024.”
The horrifying incident has ignited widespread outrage across Nigeria, especially on social media, as many Nigerians have taken to X to demand justice for Christiana, with the hashtag #JusticeForChristianah trending.
Meanwhile, according to PUNCH online, efforts to get the reaction of the victim’s family proved abortive as calls and messages made to the family source were not responded to as of the time of filling this report.
Also, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, did not respond to messages sent to his WhatsApp line even after reading the messages and was yet to respond to calls made to his line by our correspondent.