The Nigerian police force have recently been in the direct line of fire of many Nigerians, especially on social media for asking a victim of abduction to ‘check her DM’.
Yesterday at around 1:16pm, a tweet from an unknown account took the Nigerian space by storm; Ameerah Sufyan had been abducted.
According to the narration by the Twitter account MINDCOACH, the handle of the victim, it claimed she had been abducted at gunpoint in Abuja.
Please whoever has my WhatsApp number I sent a broadcast message of my location, we were abducted at gun point by ppl with police uniforms and a van from our houses from different parts of abuja, we’re 17 including 3 pregnant women and two little kids, they didn’t see my phone
Please whoever has my WhatsApp number I sent a broadcast message of my location, we were abducted at gun point by ppl with police uniforms and a van from our houses from different parts of abuja, we’re 17 including 3 pregnant women and two little kids, they didn’t see my phone
— MINDCOACH (@Ameerah_sufyan) June 14, 2022
Many Nigerians jumped on the tweet. While some were busy getting the location coordinates through her tweet, others were calling on the security operatives to do the needful.
However, a particular tweet that got the social media users upset was from the Nigerian Police Force, FCT Command, Abuja. It claimed that investigation was in progress to locate her, asking her to check her direct message.
Investigation is in progress, We thank everyone for the many helpful information coming in from all quarters and urge all to exercise calm and patience as we get to the root of this. kindly check your DM @Ameerah_sufyan.
— NPF FCT Command (@policeng_fct) June 14, 2022
Many wondered what is the value of a Nigerian life if Ameerah, despite doing half of the job by revealing her location, is yet to be found. A handle, @AM_Saleeem, was very upset with the police response and questioned why a direct message was necessary for someone undergoing such dilemma.
Though the police replied that physical action had since been deployed but many Nigerian were not pacified. The police handle wrote:
Our message might just be reaching the social media space but If a thousand action has been taken on locating her, our last comment on her post would probably be the 999th. While physical action has since been deployed, this is just to assure everyone that we are on it .
As at the time of publishing this report, Ameerah, whose profile revealed she is a psychotherapist, psycho-educator and an Arabic tutor, claimed her abductors comprised of four Yoruba and two Fulani men from the last tweet on her wall.
“They’re four Yoruba and two men. They divided us up one hour ago and we’re seven here. The other vehicle they said they will reach Ilorin and ours will reach Ibadan or Ikeja as they said,” she wrote.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
