Abuja — For Imam Mohammed Awwal Mustapha of Izala Mosque at Masaka, in Nasarawa State, life has suddenly turned so sweet after he recovered his nine months old baby boy, Salim that was kidnapped for six days by a lady that he accommodated after being told she was stranded.

Our reporter learnt that the lady had met some Muslims close to Izala Mosque and introduced herself as Zainab on July 8, 2009.

"At about 7.30pm of that day, the lady told us she was a stranger from far and needed help, because she could not reach her brother whom she came to visit, as his phone lines were off.

After listening to the woman's plight, the Mosque committee then appealed to Imam Mustapha to accommodate her in his apartment, since he has two rooms and the following day, the woman went out to phone her brother and returned to tell us that she could not get him and slept that night," Salihu Ibrahim, a friend of the Imam said.

According to him, at about 5.30pm to 6pm of July 10, the woman, who pretended to love children, backed the baby and held the Imam's two daughters (whose ages were 6 years and 12 years respectively) to where she intended to make the phone call.

"The lady deceived the two under aged girls to go back home and call their elder sister and disappeared with the baby immediately they left," he said.

The Imam disclosed further that members of the Mosque committee and himself went to Mararaba to see if they could trace the lady and later returned to Masaka Police Station to report the incident to the police on Saturday.

According to him, they went back to the room, where the baby snatcher slept and found a nylon bag belonging to her which was searched and a Glo SIM card recovered.

He said members of the community kept their ears open for news on the missing baby and his attention was drawn to the case of a woman caught with a baby somewhere in Abuja on Sunday, which was not his child.

The Imam praised the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) of Masaka Police Station, whom he said called all the phone lines listed on the Glo SIM card found in the woman's belonging.

"The first person was a man that reside's at Aso Pada, who said the lady must have picked his number from his complimentary card.

The DPO then called another man to find out if he can identify a lady, who just had an accident and has his number on her phone and the man replied that the only lady he gave his number to is called Kehinde.

After listening to the DPO, the man gave a description of Kehinde's mother's restaurant along Kaduna road and the DPO along with the baby's family drove to Kehinde mother's restaurant, where they learnt of a Jennifer, who is friendly to the child kidnaper," he said.

The Imam's friend said when the DPO tried to lure Jennifer to come and identify a female corpse that died in an accident, the lady refused.

"I had to deceive her that I was Kehinde's boyfriend called Musa and needed to see her urgently, so that she can deliver a message to Kehinde, before she came to where I requested we meet and the police arrested her.

Mama Kehinde, who said she had not seen her daughter and Jennifer were transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department at Lafia for more investigation," the Imam's friend explained.

He said the DPO called the victim's father on Wednesday to intimate him that the investigating police officer called to say the child has been found and we went to Lafia Police Command and saw our child as well as Kehinde.

"We asked Kehinde, why she stole our baby and she said she left home with a pregnancy and did not know what happened to it and needed to go back with a child in order to convince her people that she can give birth," he stated.

Salihu Ibrahim said the victim's family then requested for their child back and told the police that if government want to continue with the case against the woman they can go ahead but the child family does not want case and has left everything to God.

Our reporter observed residents coming into the Imam's compound to congratulate him and pary for the recovered child.

At the Masaka Police Station yesterday, the divisional police officer was not on seat and the Divisional Crime Officer; Mr Gushua declined to comment on the incident, stating that cases transferred to the State Police Command can only be addressed by the commissioner of police or the command's public relations officer.