A bizarre incident unfolded at the Abaji cattle market in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Tuesday when a suspected thief, in the process of selling a stolen ram, abandoned the animal and fled after spotting the rightful owner. The drama, which played out in broad daylight, has left the community abuzz, while the police have remained tight-lipped on the matter.<\/p>\n
Eyewitnesses, including Shuaibu Ibrahim, recounted that the incident occurred around 11:12 a.m. The suspect, whose identity remains unknown, allegedly stole the ram from a Fulani settlement in Adagba village, also located in Abaji. According to Ibrahim, the owner of the ram had noticed the theft earlier in the day and wasted no time raising the alarm within the community. Fearing the thief might try to sell the ram at the local market, the owner alerted some buyers to keep an eye out for anyone attempting to offload the stolen animal.<\/p>\n
Despite the owner’s efforts to rally attention, there was initially no sign of the stolen ram or its thief. Taking matters into his own hands, the owner decided to go to the market himself. To his astonishment, upon arrival, he spotted the suspect in the middle of a negotiation to sell his missing ram. The moment the thief noticed the rightful owner approaching, he abandoned the ram and fled, vanishing into the crowd before anyone could apprehend him.<\/p>\n
Witnesses described the scene as chaotic yet somewhat comical, with marketgoers left in disbelief at the thief’s hasty escape. \u201cThe suspect was already deep in negotiation when the owner came into view,\u201d Ibrahim said. \u201cThe moment he realized he had been caught, he dropped the rope tied to the ram and ran off without looking back.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the drama, local vigilante groups were mobilized to search for the fleeing suspect. However, as of the time of filing this report, there has been no confirmation of the suspect\u2019s whereabouts, and efforts to track him down have so far yielded no results. While the thief remains at large, the ram was safely returned to its owner following a brief interrogation at the scene to confirm ownership.<\/p>\n
Although the incident created a spectacle in the market, it also raised questions about security in the area. The ease with which the suspect managed to steal the ram and nearly complete the sale has sparked concerns among traders and buyers about the safety of their livestock and goods. Several marketgoers expressed frustration at the growing number of thefts in the community, urging the authorities to step up security measures.<\/p>\n
The lack of response from law enforcement has further fueled discontent. The spokeswoman for the FCT police command, Josephine Adeh, was unavailable for comment at the time of this report. Despite repeated efforts by\u00a0Abuja City Journal<\/em> to reach her, no official statement has been released regarding the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A bizarre incident unfolded at the Abaji cattle market in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Tuesday when a suspected thief, in the process of selling a stolen ram, abandoned the animal and fled after spotting the rightful owner. The drama, which played out in broad daylight, has left the community abuzz, while the police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":52036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-52308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52318,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52308\/revisions\/52318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}