A children’s rights foundation is demanding the immediate release of a 12-year-old boy and his mother, who they say have been held in a police cell in Ikotun since a dispute over a lost SIM card spiralled into a custodial nightmare, leaving a crying infant alone at home without its mother.
The Zach and Eunice We Care Foundation (ZEECFOUNDATION) petitioned the Lagos State Police Command on September 1, 2026, seeking urgent intervention on behalf of the boy, identified only as Olamide, and his mother, who the foundation says is currently menstruating and unable to nurse her infant child.
“We are particularly concerned because Olamide is only 12 years old and is reportedly being kept in a police cell,” the foundation said in its petition.
The trouble reportedly began weeks earlier, on August 1, 2026, over something almost mundane: a SIM card. According to the foundation, Olamide found the card on his classroom floor and kept it in his phone, not realising, or perhaps not fully grasping, the consequences of the fact that it belonged to a classmate.
The matter was first reported to the Area M Command, where police collected the boy’s phone and SIM card for investigation.
Under the guidance of his parents, a lawyer, and the investigating officer, identified in the petition as Mateuw Omotosho, Olamide wrote a formal undertaking. For a moment, it seemed resolved.
But the case resurfaced after a separate allegation: that Olamide had threatened another child, Moses. The school investigated it.
According to Olamide’s father, Moses admitted he hadn’t personally witnessed anything; he’d only heard about it from another child. The school’s own conclusion, the foundation says, was that this was a dispute between minors, best resolved by the school and the parents together, not the courts.
That should have been the end of it. Instead, Olamide’s father, Olufemi, was told his wife had been “invited” to Ikotun Police Station. Trusting the process, he advised her to go.
What happened next, according to the foundation, was anything but routine.
“Information available to the foundation indicates the woman and her 12-year-old son were subsequently detained in a police cell,” the petition alleges, pointing to an officer identified as ASP Obby, badge number 80131338007, as having directed the detention.
Left behind at the family’s home: an infant, described by the foundation as “crying and distressed,” and other children now without their usual caregiver. Olamide’s father was reportedly out of town when it happened.
“The child’s mother is reportedly a nursing mother and is currently menstruating,” the petition states. “Their infant child has been left at home without the mother and is reportedly crying and distressed.”
The foundation also alleges that the father was humiliated during the ordeal, with officers reportedly calling him a “fake prophet” and a “419 prophet and that a financial demand was made, a claim ZEECFOUNDATION wants independently investigated. The family, the foundation says, still hasn’t been clearly told what offence justifies keeping the mother and child in custody.
ZEECFOUNDATION, which works on protecting women, children and vulnerable persons, is careful to say it isn’t trying to shield anyone from a legitimate investigation. Its objection is to how a child has allegedly been treated.
“The Child Rights Act 2003 provides special protections for children in contact with the justice system, including the principle that detention should be a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period,” the group said, also invoking Section 35 of the 1999 Constitution and the Nigeria Police Act 2020.
It frames the stakes starkly: a schoolyard SIM card dispute has, in its account, cascaded into the detention of two people and the effective abandonment of an infant.
“The continued detention of the mother creates a serious safeguarding concern for the infant and other dependent children, who should not be exposed to avoidable neglect, emotional distress or deprivation of essential maternal care because of an investigation involving another child,” the petition reads.
Or, as the foundation put it more plainly: “A dispute reportedly originating from a SIM card found by school children should not result in unnecessary custodial detention of a 12-year-old child, particularly where the detention of his mother has now left an infant and other child without adequate parental care.”
The petition, which was signed by ZEECFOUNDATION’s Programme Director and Safeguarding Focal Person, Aderemi Blessing, lays out a clear set of demands: the immediate release of Olamide, unless a lawful court order says otherwise, Confirmation of the exact offence and legal basis for detaining both mother and child, Treatment of the child strictly in line with child-protection and child-justice procedures, Urgent attention to the welfare of the infant and other children left without care, Access to sanitary materials, medical attention, legal representation and humane treatment for the mother, A formal investigation into ASP Obby over the alleged humiliation, intimidation and financial demand, Assurance that the family won’t face retaliation for speaking up and Referral of the family to the police Family Support Unit and child-welfare authorities.
“ZEECFOUNDATION does not seek to obstruct any lawful investigation,” the group said. “Our concern is to ensure that the investigation is conducted lawfully, fairly and in a child-sensitive manner.”
Copies of the petition have been sent to the Police Service Commission, the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development, and several child-protection and women’s rights organisations.
