A student of Caleb University in the Imota area of Lagos State, Oluwafemi Oni, has been declared missing by his family.
21-year-old Oluwanifemi, an undergraduate studying Computer Science in the institution, suddenly sent disturbing messages to his elder sister, Stella, on WhatsApp that some suspected cultists wanted him dead and pleaded with his sister not to tell his parents about the threat.
His father, Olajide Oni, in an interview with Punch, said his son finished his examination on Friday, August 13, 2021 and requested some money to visit his mother in Ibadan. Oni said that was the last time he heard from his son.
“He requested money for transportation on Monday, August 16, 2021, and I sent N5,000 to him. But I did not see any debit alert since it’s my ATM card he is using. I became worried and called a staff member of the school to check on him and the worker told me the boy had left for Ibadan to see his mum.
But I did my findings and discovered that he never arrived in Ibadan or signed out of the school. We are of the opinion that he was abducted by the cultists he told his sister about. He said the cultists wanted him dead and we saw the messages he sent to her on WhatsApp before his disappearance.
The school has just been trying to put itself in a clean shape despite being 100 per cent culpable about my son’s disappearance. The reason my child did not go to a state university was because of cultism. I took him to Caleb University after accessing that CCTV was installed everywhere. But I am surprised that after my son went missing, they refused to give us access to the CCTV footage.”he said
The 51-year-old explained that he advised the school authorities to paste Oluwanifemi’s pictures around the school premises, but they refused.
“The school said they found my son’s box with another student, one Nathaniel. The police invited Nathaniel on four occasions, but he refused the invitations. I told them to use their influence to get him to honour the invitation, but they did nothing.
If the Chief Security Officer of the school calls Nathaniel, he will pick the phone, but if the CSO hands the phone over to the Imota Divisional Police Officer to speak to Nathaniel, he will cut the call.
My son has been missing for a month; how will he sneak out without carrying his ATM card, phone, money and box found with Nathaniel? What will he use in feeding when he gets out? Nathaniel is claiming that the school is framing him; when the school was asked to bring security guards on duty when my son went missing to write a statement at the station, it brought guards that were not on duty on the day of the incident.”he said
The school authorities are yet to comment on this development.
The Lagos state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, saccused the school authorities of frustrating the investigation by the police.
“To the best of my knowledge, only the parents have reported to the police, but the school authorities have not written any official complaint to the police, stating the circumstances and the preliminary investigation it conducted so the police can take it up from there.
If that happens, we will have access to the university to ask questions. The school is the one frustrating our investigation because he got missing on the school premises. We have started an investigation, but we have yet to conclude as we have not been granted access to the scene of crime.”
