Police arrest church security worker over death of missing 11-year-old

Police in Niger State have arrested a 26-year-old security worker, Godwin Dauda, over the alleged rape and killing of an 11-year-old girl whose body was found in a well at a church in Suleja. The Niger State Police Command said the girl, Christabel Albert, was reported missing on 20 September 2026, after leaving home the previous day to attend a relative’s birthday celebration. She did not return, prompting a report at the A Division police station in Suleja.

Later that day, a pastor from the Apostolic Church in Suleja reported that a body had been found inside a well on the church premises. Police officers, assisted by local government welfare staff, removed the body and took it to General Hospital Suleja, where it was identified as Albert. Police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun said investigators suspected Dauda because he was attached to the church and had left the premises.

According to the command, he was arrested on 23 September at about 8pm in the Kuje area of the Federal Capital Territory, where he had allegedly gone to hide. In a statement attributed to the state Commissioner of Police, Adamu Abdullahi Elleman, police said the suspect told investigators that he had lured the girl into his security room on 19 September, raped her and then placed her body in the well to conceal the crime. The account remains an allegation in a criminal investigation.

Abiodun said preliminary investigations were continuing and that Dauda would be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Minna for what police described as diligent prosecution. The source material does not state whether charges have yet been filed or provide details of a medical examination.