owly springing to life on the wooden bench where she laid as one of her neighbours led our correspondent into the compound, the grief still remained fresh on the face of Elizabeth Malomo. With signs of paleness visible all over her skin and a body significantly battered by months of suffering and frustrations, it has been a very turbulent time for the 70-year-old, her five children and several grandchildren. Since the sudden disappearance of her husband, best friend and confidant – David Malomo – on December 3, 1999, life has not remained the same for the entire family. Challenges and trials have poured in, in torrents........
“This was not the plan we had together,” the 70-year-old said, emotions betraying her. “David never told me he was not coming back. He told his daughter, Shade, who saw him on his way out that he was going to Mushin to buy some items. It was not the first time that he would be going there to buy prayer items and sometimes he even got as far as Bar Beach to get water from the Atlantic with which he prayed for people. He was the spiritual leader of the Cherubim and Seraphim church in our area. But since he went out that day, he has not returned,” she narrated.cc
The hours and days that followed their father and breadwinner’s sudden disappearance threw not just the family into pains and confusion; it left their entire Ijora Badia neighbourhood in chaos. Neighbours, church members, relatives and friends – everybody rallied round to form a huge search party to look for the missing man. From police stations to street corners, highways to mortuaries – they looked for their missing father and friend everywhere. But the more they searched, the more heartbreaks they got.
“After waiting till evening without seeing any trace of their father, his children and some neighbours went looking for him,” Malomo continued. “He had never stayed that long from the house. By the next day, some of our relatives from Akoka came around after hearing the news. All of us started looking for him everywhere we felt he could be. People told us all sorts of things, some would say they saw him at Yaba, others would say they came across him at Oshodi. On a particular day, somebody told me that they found a body of a man at Fadeyi, we rushed down there to realise that he was not the one. On several occasions, his children would take a taxi and start moving round different parts of Lagos looking for him, hoping to find his body at least. After doing this for six months, we felt there was no use, so we left the matter to God.
“The police really cooperated with us on the matter. They took us round their different cells to ensure that he was not in any of them. We even visited several mortuaries to see if we could find his body. He has been missing till date,” she said.
David’s disappearance apart from being a pill too bitter to swallow for the Malomos, has changed their lives in more than a few ways. As a result of the pains of watching her only son vanish into thin air without trace, his mother – Margaret – died three years later while the Lagos State Government, under the administration of Babatunde Fashola around 2008 demolished three of the missing man’s houses in their Ijora Badia community, rendering Elizabeth and her children homeless for several months before they managed to rent a two-room apartment to stay. Without their breadwinner, the family still struggles to survive.
“It was the problem of his disappearance that killed his mother. She died three years after he went missing because she could not bear the pains anymore. Look at me; I have grown older than my age because of what I have been through since my husband went missing. Sometimes we feel like it’s better to know he is dead than just being missing because the thought of where he could be, how safe he is, breaks our hearts the more.
“The three houses of my husband were demolished by the Lagos State government under the regime of Babatunde Fashola. We became homeless all of sudden, squatting with friends before we were able to gather money to rent two rooms to stay.
“I have suffered different kinds of sicknesses since my husband went missing. As we speak, my eyes are really troubling me, I can’t see properly especially under the sun. A doctor told me that I was thinking too much and that was why my health had been affected. My husband was a very loving and kind man who brought joy and peace into our lives. But since he went missing, sunshine has since departed our home. In fact, every knock on the door makes us think he is the one that has come back. We miss him so much,” she said.
The only daughter of the family, Shade, recalled events leading to their father’s sudden disappearance. She told our correspondent that the entire issue could have been spiritually manipulated by people who were envious of the love and happiness in their home. According to her, being a church leader who conducted deliverance for a lot of people in bondage, their father could have been a target of some evil forces.
“I met him on the way that day; he was dressed in a new shirt and a pair of trousers. I asked him where he was off to and he told me he was going to buy some stuffs at Oyingbo and Mushin. He was still recovering from stroke at the time. That was the last time I set my eyes on him.
“After he went missing, we took his photographs to the police, television and radio stations trying to see if there could be any piece of information that could give us a clue of where he could be. But nothing positive came out of it. Some of the places we went, we were told that he would never be found again; they said his case had some spiritual undertone. But then, we still believe that he would come back home one day.
“We love and miss our father. He never allowed us go hungry for a day. He was caring to a fault,” she said.
In Shomolu, another densely populated Lagos suburb, the wife and three children of Olaide Shittu are still waiting for the return of their father and breadwinner. On the evening of August 10, 2012, Shittu who was 38 at the time and was working with a printing firm in the zzzzzMagodo area of the city, had stopped by at a football viewing centre at the close of work to watch a match between Barcelona and Chelsea, two of Europe’s biggest football teams. It was not the first time he would be doing that, so his wife and relatives did not find any reason to be worried initially. But after waiting till 12:00am without seeing any trace of him, Rukayat, his wife, knew something had gone wrong. She beckoned on his uncle, Mr. Tajudeen Salami, who lived in the same
Olaide was living with us here and worked with a printing firm in Magodo. He loved football so much that sometimes he would call to say he had stopped somewhere to watch a match after the close of work,” Salami told Saturday PUNCH. “On this particular day, his wife came to report to me that she had not seen her husband at around 12:00am. I was surprised because he had never stayed that long outside. We started calling his two phone lines but they were switched off. His wife burst into tears. We reached some of his colleagues who told us that he stopped by to watch football after closing from work. We have been looking for him since that night.
“We visited the police station at Pedro the next day to make a report and also went to the one at Magodo to make sure he had not been detained there for moving about in the night. We didn’t find him there. In trying to look for him, we have visited herbalists, pastors, alfas and all they keep telling us is that he is alive.
“There was a tenant that lived here before now, he called me once and said that from the spiritual consultations he made, it was clear to him that Olaide was pushed off the Ogudu/Ifako bridge after entering ‘one-chance.’ He said if we went there to search, we would find his corpse there. Initially, I took his statement lightly but after he kept repeating the same thing, we had to involve the police. We went to Ogudu Police Station to make a report and some officers went with us to the place where our tenant claimed Olaide’s corpse was dumped by his killers. But after searching the entire surrounding for two days, we did not find anything that looked like him.
“We still believe he will come back home. That is why we locked up his room and have refused to rent it out to anyone else,” he said.
Rukayat who could not hold back tears while narrating how tough life had become without their breadwinner to our correspondent, said that she had managed to find concentration in whatever she was doing since her husband vanished. The thought of another man, she said, had never occurred to her since Olaide went missing even though it has been almost three years – enough time to have gotten over depression and move on.
“There can be no one else like him,” she said. “He was more than just a husband and father. He was our friend. He understood our feelings and did everything he could to make us happy. There is no day that I don’t try his two numbers to see if they would go through. On many occasions I wish the next call on my phone would be his voice. Life has been very terrible without him. Everyday, I look forward to seeing him knock on the door and return home,” she submitted, her voice fading out slowly on the phone.
Sodiq, eldest son of the missing Olaide, told our correspondent that he has had to dig deep within to find the strength and courage many times to console and comfort his siblings who often cry over the disappearance of their father. He fears their future ambitions could be threatened without the love and support of their pillar – Olaide. The last three years, he says, has been very difficult for them.
“The days following my father’s disappearance were filled with fears, hope and frustrations. The entire family was in pains all through that period. My father used to talk to me very well about the future. He would warn me against joining bad gangs; he promised to do all he could to ensure that we all had quality education.
“Most times, my younger ones would ask about him and cry but I do my best to comfort them and let them know that he is still coming back. Every time we hear a knock on the door, we wish it was our father. We miss him so much. His disappearance has left emptiness in our lives,” he said.
Mrs. Hijarat Mojeed, mother-in-law to the missing man who has been taking care of the children since the sad incident, told our correspondent that darkness had taken over their lives since their son disappeared.
“He was a nice person; he was like my biological son. We have looked for him everywhere even mortuaries but never found him. We have been told not to give up hope that Olaide would return home one day. We are optimistic and praying for God’s grace upon him wherever he may be,” she said.
Painful as it is, the Malomos and Shittus are not the only ones still bleeding from wounds inflicted on them following the sudden disappearance of their loved ones and breadwinners, they belong to a long list of households suffering the same fate across the country. While some in this category were discovered to have ended up in police cells several months after disappearing, the whereabouts of dozens others remain a mystery and constant source of worry to their families.
On May 7, 2015, a customer service professional, 31-year-old Seun Aluko, left his office at Maryland, Lagos around 3:30pm and went missing before he got to his Ibafo, Ogun State residence. His family made several announcements on social media in trying to find him. Five days later, he suddenly showed up at home. He had been arrested by the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja, during a raid before being beaten, starved and locked up in a tiny cell.
Despite not allowing him contact his family, his relations were told during a visit to SARS headquarters in Lagos that there was no record of him being held at the facility.
Like Aluko, Etroo Mensah, a Ghanaian living in Lagos, is lucky to have been reunited with his family after being locked in a police cell for weeks without the knowledge of any of them. He was arrested by the police along with several others in March around the Ajah area of the state before being thrown in jail. His discovery three months later was a miracle.
“They (police) arrested about 40 persons,” he said. “They had a big bus. We were in Elomoro (police station) for four days. …we were arraigned at the Tinubu Magistrate’s Court and four of us were taken to Ikoyi Prisons. That was where I had been for three months,” Mensah said.
Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Police, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, toldSaturday PUNCH that the constitution affords suspects or any arrested individual to make a phone call when in police custody.
He said, “Anybody who is arrested has the right to be told the reason for his arrest and has the right to contact their family members, doctors, pastors, or Imams. The police should give such people access to a telephone. It is a right.
“But mind you, when someone is arrested in the heat of crime, it would be dangerous for the police to allow such a person to make a call because the person can call for reinforcement.
“However, when they get to the police station, a suspect in custody has the right under the law to place a call to neighbours, relations or friends to inform them of his whereabouts.”
In the last five years, hundreds of Nigerians of all ages and backgrounds have gone missing under various circumstances. While only a fraction of that figure were lucky to be found, scores others remain missing, leaving their families and friends in perpetual pains.
The police in Lagos for example, announced recently that they are investigating 100 cases of persons who had gone missing between January and May 2015 alone. The Command, through its in-house bulletin, Police Calling, says that at least four persons are reported missing by relatives every week in Lagos – an average of 224 in a year going by that figure. This is aside the many others which go unreported.
The whereabouts of Rasaq Gawat, a television presenter and Bolarinwa Olomo, a professor of nuclear physics at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State in 2012 and 2013 respectively remains a mystery. Experts blame some of these sudden disappearances on kidnappings, ritual killings, road accidents, faulting the police and related agencies for not having a good tracking network in place to solve such mysteries.
Psychologist, Buchi Anyamele, explains that living with the burden of missing loved ones could lead to anxiety, fear, depression and deviant acts by persons affected. According to him, persons in this category as a result of not finding their missing relatives could easily turn against the society they think has inflicted such injury on them.
“People in this category need all the support they can get because it is not easy to live with the knowledge that your loved one is missing and you can’t even do anything about it. Besides the health and mental effects this could have on such individuals, depression could set in so much that they begin to exhibit funny behaviours. Some could even be pushed to turn against the society by committing grievous crimes just to heal their wound. It is a very painful experience and the society must do all it can to support relations of missing persons especially those who are breadwinners to carry on with their lives,” he said.
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