A mobile policeman, Mr. Sunday Ibrahim, attached to a Lagos-based businessman, identified only as Salau, has been missing since July 2017.
The distraught wife of the policeman, Grace, 35, told PUNCH Metro that she had been living in sorrow and uncertainty since July 28 when she last talked with her husband on the telephone.
Narrating the story amidst tears, Grace said Sunday, with service number 240620, who was serving at the Special Protection Unit, Zone 11, Osogbo, was asked to protect the businessman and members of his family in Lagos.
She said, “My husband told me that his boss posted him to a man in Lagos and told him that he would come back later. We used to communicate very often on the telephone. We talked many times in a day. But on July 28, 2017, I called him and his phone rang out.
“I called a second time and somebody picked it and said he was having a bath. I called after a while and the person told me that my husband would call me back; but I did not hear from him.
“I went to Zone 11 to ask for my husband’s whereabouts, and they told me that he was posted to where there was no network and that he would call me back later.”
The woman said despite repeated visits to the zone and the Osun State Police Command to know her husband’s whereabouts, she did not get any information about him.
Sunday’s brother, Ezekiel, said a police officer at the SPU warned him against coming to the zone to disturb them with the issue of the missing cop.
He added that a woman at Zone 11 also warned the family against going to report the case to the press.
The businessman, Salau, told our correspondent on the telephone that he had asked Sunday to escort his family on a trip in July 2017.
He explained that during the journey, there was a robbery attack during which the policeman alighted from the vehicle and fled.
He said he had not seen him since then.
“He escorted some members of my family on a trip. Between Ilesa and Ife, there was a robbery during which the robbers shot and killed my niece. The driver told me that he (the policeman) ran into a bush and they did not see him after the incident.
“The case was reported to Zone 11 and to the Commissioner of Police in Osun State. On compassionate grounds, I paid the school fees of his children. I don’t know anything about his disappearance and you can verify from the police,” Salau said.
The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fimihan Adeoye, said he was investigating the robbery because it happened in his jurisdiction.
The Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone 11, Mr. Agboola Oshodi-Glover, said the case was under investigation.
“We will get to the root of the matter. I don’t want to say more than that,” he added.