Okechukwu had reportedly pleaded with the boy’s parents to accommodate him for a night before the incident happened.

Esomchi, a one-year old child of one Silas Oyoke, was allegedly
kidnapped by a stranger who sought shelter from his family.

According to the Punch Newspaper, the whereabouts of Esomchi become
unknown shortly after the stranger, simply identified as Okechukwu,
left the Oyoke’s house.

Okechukwu had reportedly pleaded with the boy’s parents to accommodate
him for a night before the incident happened.

Okechukwu was said to be a businessman based in Port Harcourt and
always comes to Ebonyi State to buy food items in large quantities for
retail in cities.

Esomchi’s father, Silas Oyoke, said, “On September 20, 2019, somebody
came to me and requested that I should help him. He said he wanted to
buy garri in large quantity and I took him to the Meat Market along
the Gunning Road.

“Later that evening, I saw the man in my house. I said, ‘Why are you
here again? Didn’t my wife say you would go from the market, where you
had gone to buy the garri? Why are you here again?’ He said he didn’t
want to follow the 911 truck and that he would go the following
morning, being Tuesday.”

Silas added that it was later that his wife started looking for their
child and raised the alarm.

He added, “It was at that point that my little daughter said the man,
who spent the night in our house, said Esomchi should accompany him to
go and buy a biscuit.

“From there, we started running helter-skelter. I called the number
that the man gave me, but he refused to pick the call for more than
five hours. It happened around 2 pm and we started moving from park to
park until around 11 pm.”

The Ekeaba Divisional Police Station confirmed the incident but added
that Silas displayed an unserious attitude to the loss of his son.