A man identified as David Moses has confessed to the gruesome killing of a school nurse and a 14-month-old child at a school in the Dawaki area of Abuja, blaming his actions on pressure from an alleged accomplice named Sunday, who is currently at large.
Moses, a security guard deployed to the school, made the confession while being interrogated by journalists at the Federal Capital Territory police command on Friday.
He said he and Sunday had planned to kidnap the victims for ransom, initially demanding ₦250 million before settling for ₦3 million.
“What brought me here is that I killed a child with a nurse in Clear Hope School on July 23. Me and my friend, we demanded for ₦250 ransom. Later on, we later settled for ₦3 million. Which we collected,” he said.
According to him, the incident took a violent turn when a dispute over the ransom money broke out between him and Sunday.
He added that he later sought help and eventually confessed to the police after receiving treatment in a hospital.
“When we collected the money and were sharing it, that was when we had an issue. My friend stabbed me with a knife, took the money, and ran away. I struggled and took myself to someone’s house and told the person what was going on. But I didn’t tell the full truth at that time because I was afraid the community might have killed me immediately.
“I insisted on seeing the police so they could take me to the hospital and I could explain the whole story properly. The man told me to wait while he called the police. When the police came, they took me to the hospital. After I received treatment, they began to ask me what happened, and I started narrating the whole story from the beginning.”
Detailing how the school nurse was killed, Moses said she was lured into a trap under the guise of checking something in a toilet, where Sunday allegedly strangled her with a rope.
Moses said, “I went to call her from her class, while Sunday was hiding in the toilet. When I called her, I told her I wanted to show her something near the front toilet where Sunday was hiding. As we were going, he came out from behind and held the woman. He put a rope around her neck and started strangling her she struggled but eventually became weak.”
The child, he said, was later also taken and killed at Sunday’s insistence.
Moses said, “Then he told me to run and go bring the baby so we could also kill the baby. I said no, that the woman alone was enough. He insisted, saying that if we didn’t bring the baby, the ransom we demanded wouldn’t be enough. So, I went and brought the baby.”
When asked how many people he had killed or kidnapped before, he said, “I have never done such a thing. This was the first time someone pushed me into any evil act.”
Probed further on his relationship with the woman and the baby, he said she gave him ₦300 to buy food the day she was killed.
Moses said, “There’s no relationship. The woman was nice to me. In fact, that very day, she gave me ₦300 to buy food. She had been giving me money to eat even before then.”
Zachariah Fiyinfoluwa, a representative of the security company that employed Moses distanced himself from the crime, saying he was only informed of the disappearance of the nurse and child after the school principal raised an alarm.
“I don’t know anybody called Sunday. The person we posted to the school is David,” he said.
However, under questioning, Fiyinfoluwa admitted that the company failed to properly document Moses’ employment, including failing to keep his guarantor’s information.
“For us not to keep the record, I accept that it’s our fault,” he said.
When pressed further on the company’s responsibility, especially for the safety of persons within the premises, Fiyinfoluwa admitted that supervisors were supposed to routinely visit deployment sites but did not confirm if such oversight occurred at Claire Hope School.
In an interview with the Commissioner of Police, Ajao Adewale said the victims were reported missing on July 23, 2025, from the school the same day, a ransom demand of ₦250 million was made via the caregiver’s phone.
The CP said following an investigation, police operatives arrested Moses, who later confessed to conspiring with his friend, Sunday Irimiya currently at large to carry out the crime.
He said, “On July 23, 2025, the FCT Police Command received a distress report concerning the sudden disappearance of Mrs. Chinyere Anaene, a 55-year-old school nurse and caregiver at Clear Hope Foundation Academy, Dawaki, Abuja, and a toddler identified as Nanenter Asher Yese, aged one year and two months.
“On the same day, the husband of the caregiver received a call on the caregiver’s mobile phone wherein unidentified individuals demanded a ransom of ₦250 million for their release.”
“Despite having killed the victims, they still demanded ₦3 million from the family under the pretence that the victims were alive,” Adewale said.
He said the police have also arrested the school principal, two other security guards, and the Chief Security Officer of the private security company that deployed Moses to the school.
“In the course of our investigation, the police also arrested the school principal, two additional security guards who were meant to be on duty with David Moses, and the Chief Security Officer of the private security company responsible for deploying the guards to the school, ” he said.
(Punch)