Zubaidat Isah, 19, left her home at Kado Village Life Camp in Abuja on February 13, 2025, after receiving a call from her boss, Grace Okosun, regarding a job in Gwarinpa, Federal Capital Territory. Her family would not see her again after that.
“That day was her day off. Her madam called her that she should come to work in the evening,” Zubaidat’s mother, Bintu Isah narrated tearfully.
Bintu claims that Zubaidat worked for Grace’s Spax Republic, Utako, for almost two years prior to being accepted to Nasarawa State University.
“It happened that from November through December last year, when she was on vacation, she decided to go back to work to get some money before returning to school,” Bintu said.
When the bereaved mother’s daughter went for work at 6:30 p.m., her employer told her to go to Gwarinpa at House 3, off 3rd Avenue, to meet with a coworker named Zainab, sometimes known as Lilian, for additional job instructions.
“She called me around 8pm saying that she had gotten to the office…The following day, we couldn’t reach her. We kept trying her line but the phone was switched off. I now asked her elder brother to call her but her phone was still switched off.“
“I was worried because her phone was never switched off as she had a power bank to boost it. I told Hakeem that we should go to her work place to look for her. When we got there, we met her colleagues.“
“I asked them about my daughter and they said they didn’t know her whereabouts. I asked about their Madam and they said she is in Kaduna. But I said, ‘No, your madam called Zubaidat, and I was aware of it’.“
The upset mother claimed to have called Grace right away, but Grace denied contacting Zubaidat or being aware of her whereabouts.
On Valentine’s Day, February 14, Bintu, who was determined to find her daughter, reported the case to the Life Camp police station.
She clarified that although she had given the police the madam’s number, Grace denied any connection to Zubaidat when the police contacted her and declined to come to the police station when they requested her to.
In a shocking turn of events, the family said that on the fourth day after Zubaidat vanished, a guy who only identified himself as Honourable called her mother and claimed that Grace had told him that there had been a “fight” that day and that Zubaidat had been hurt during it. The man had since died.
“He introduced himself to me as Honourable. He was actually the one that helped lead to the arrest of Grace by the Intelligence Response Unit (IRT),” Hakeem, Zubaidat’s brother explained.
Days later, the family was notified by the authorities that a body thought to be Zubaidat’s had been found. It was brought to the mortuary at Kubwa General Hospital.
“When we got to Gwarinpa Police Division, that very day, they told me to write a statement. I ask them for the picture they took of the body. The picture and the video they showed me was not of my daughter.
“I requested to visit the mortuary. So, they now gave us two policemen that went with us to the General Hospital. I followed the mortuary attendant and when they brought out the corpse, it was still not my daughter,” she said.
Zubaidat’s mother and brother clarified that the body’s physical characteristics did not resemble those of Zuby, as they usually refer to her.
“She’s not even close to my sister,” the brother said. “My sister has a gap tooth. She also has a birthmark on her face which the corpse doesn’t have. The corpse had a piercing on the nose unlike my sister.”
Her mother maintains that the body that was brought to them is not that of her accused daughter, despite the police’s insistence that the young woman is dead. officials of a potential cover-up.
A senior police official from the Gwarinpa Police Division said that Zubaidat had been stabbed and had her hands bound behind her back. The officer disclosed that the Gwarinpa Division was eventually required to turn over the case file by the Inspector General’s Intelligence Response Team, or IRT. However, the division fought continuously, saying that the FCT Police Command had already received the paperwork.
The family says the case was surreptitiously charged to court without their knowledge, which is even more upsetting.
“How can a case be under investigation and when the investigation is still ongoing, you charge the case to the court,” they queried.
During the court hearing, they also organized rallies to raise awareness of what they claim is a police burial of a human trafficking case.
“I believe my sister is alive and those involved are moving my sister and other girls out of this country and that’s why they have been trying to cover this up,” Hakeem claimed.
The first CID sent THE WHISTLER to police public relations officer Muyiwa Adejobi, while the IRT was unavailable for comment when approached.
Additionally, there was no response to repeated attempts to contact the FCT police command spokesperson. Zubaidat’s mother is requesting that Nigeria’s first lady, Senator Oluremi Tinibu, intervene on her behalf because she feels that the inquiry has been compromised.
“Please, Nigeria should help me. The First Lady should help me. I don’t have anybody to assist me, even the lawyer that I took… I don’t have somebody to assist me.“
“I’m just trying to fight them because I know that my daughter is alive. They take her somewhere. I know that my daughter is alive. They should release my daughter for me….I’m pleading with them that they should release my daughter for me.“
“I know that she’s alive, that my daughter is not dead. They should give me my daughter. I will not make any case with them if they release my daughter for me,” she lamented.“
Although there has been talk of analyzing the corpse’s DNA, Hakeem questioned if it was really necessary.
“How can we agree to DNA when we have checked and the corpse is not my sister’s. We opened the corpse’s teeth and confirmed that it doesn’t have a gap tooth. The face is not disfigured. We are seeing the face clearly. The corpse has a piercing on her nose and my sister doesn’t have one. So what do they want us to do again? We should agree to a DNA test and run a test on a corpse we know is not ours?” Hakeem queried.
Another mystery, according to the family, is that Zubaidat’s friend contacted them on the 16th of last month to inform them that she had left their school WhatsApp group.
“Grace and Zainab said they destroyed her phone when the incident happened. How can someone that is dead exit her school’s WhatsApp group or is somebody still holding on to her phone?,” he asked
Numerous doubts remain in the wake of Zubaidat’s case. In what is turning becoming one of Abuja’s most concerning unsolved disappearances, the family is still demanding accountability and openness five months after she vanished.
Source: THE WHISTLER
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