Police Arrest Church Security Guard in Suleja Over Rape, Death of 11-Year-Old

Niger State Police Command has arrested a security guard, Godwin Dauda, in connection with the rape and death of an 11-year-old girl in Suleja. Police said the case began on September 20, when a report was made at A Division Suleja that Christabel Albert, 11, had gone missing after leaving home the previous day to attend a relative's birthday ceremony. Later that evening, a pastor at the Apostolic Church, Suleja, reported that a body had been found inside a well on the church premises. Officers, with help from local government welfare officials, recovered the body and took it to General Hospital Suleja, where it was identified as the missing girl. Investigators subsequently focused on a 26-year-old security guard attached to the church, who had reportedly fled the premises. He was arrested on September 23 around Kuje in the Federal Capital Territory, where police said he had gone into hiding. The command's spokesperson, SP Wasiu Abiodun, confirmed the incident in a statement on Friday, September 25. Abiodun said the suspect confessed during interrogation that he lured the girl into his security room, where he sexually assaulted her, resulting in her death. The suspect said, 'After I lured her to my room and had sex with her, when I discovered she had died, I was scared, and, for people not to catch me, I dropped the corpse in the well and ran away to Kuje area of the FCT, Abuja.' Police said the suspect also admitted to disposing of the body in the well to conceal the crime before fleeing the area. 'During interrogation, he confessed that he lured the girl to his room and raped her to death,' the PPRO stated. 'In his effort to conceal the crime, he dropped the corpse in the well and ran away.' The Command said preliminary investigations are ongoing, and the suspect will be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Minna for further investigation and prosecution.