The police in Lagos are making efforts to rescue a14 years old girl who has been in chains at Number 21 Serebe Street, an uncompleted building in the Ikotun area of Lagos, for about one month.

According to the girl, who gave her name as Onyekachukwu from Delta State, she was chained on her neck and legs, and locked up in one of the rooms in a three-bedroom apartment by her father, whose name she gave as Mr. John Mowete Onyinye.

“I can’t come out of this place because my Daddy chained me for going to my grandmother’s place at Orile in Lagos and coming back late,” Onyekachukwu, who spoke through a window with burglar-proof and mosquito net, told our reporter. But some neighbours who volunteered information disclosed that the 14-year-old was in the habit of leaving home without her parents knowing her whereabouts.

Onyekachukwu said she was a Junior Secondary (JS1) student at Diamond Light Academy at Awawu – also within the area – before her father withdrew her. She also disclosed that her mother, a petty trader, ran way this morning when she heard that some neighbours were making arrangements to alert the police. But her father was said to have, as always, left home for work early in the morning.

“They have been feeding me once in a day. He asked me to stay in his room, and not in our own room; that I should not come to the windows so that people will not see me,” she lamented. However, help came her way when a young man, identified as the landlord of the building, overheard her crying for help.

The detained girl said the apartment is occupied by her mom, dad, a little sister named Onyinye and two younger brothers, Dike and Chinedu, who our reporter saw as they just returned from school, wailing as a crowd of sympathisers gathered.

When the police initially arrived the scene early afternoon, they could not gain entry into the apartment hence they returned to Ikotun Police Station, not only to give a situation report but also to reinforce.

“They said I should not worry; that when they finish what they are doing, they will come and release me,” Onyekachukwu said as she clutched on the burglar-proof, awaiting rescue.

•Photo shows the chained Onyekachukwu.

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