Still looking, six weeks on
THIRTEEN hours before she disappeared from Table Mountain on March 21, Unicef associate director for human resources Charlotte Nikoi posted a photo and message on Facebook celebrating her marriage.
“Over 22+ years ago this month, a much younger me nervously uttered those 2 small words ‘I do’. . .
“I very much still ‘do’ today and what an exciting journey we’ve had together since then. We’ve been blessed Chris Nikoi. Happy anniversary month!” she wrote, above a photo of the couple.
The next day, on Table Mountain — after a last-minute decision to hike up Platteklip Gorge with their 16-year-old daughter — she vanished.
On Thursday, the 46th day she has been missing, Chris Nikoi pleaded with the public to pass on information: any clue that might help the family to get her back unharmed.
“All we want is her safely back with us and anything else can be overcome,” he said. “Every day our daughters call me from the US and they always ask me if there is anything new about their mom.
“Somebody must have seen something between then and now, someone who looks like her or some movement of people or a neighbour acting a little strange. It is impossible to have a Bermuda Triangle-style disappearance.”
He advertised that Charlotte “Nana Yaa” Nikoi was missing and that he was NO TRACE: Charlotte Nikoi is said to be devoted to her daughters offering a handsome reward, with her photo and details, in 15 community newspapers more than a month ago.
This week he was handing out flyers in Cape Town’s CBD.
“I cannot sit in my office and I cannot function with my wife missing,” said Chris, southern Africa regional director of the UN’s World Food Programme.
A police spokesman, LieutenantColonel André Traut said on Thursday that there had been no new developments in the investigation.
Chris said Charlotte was a supportive wife and devoted to their daughters, aged 16, 20 and 22 and all studying in the US. “My wife would never just walk away from her family and put us through this anguish. By elimination, she must be somewhere against her will.
“We do not know if she is alive or dead, drugged, starving or in pain. We have absolutely no idea, no clue, and that is very difficult to endure.”
He and his daughter, who was on the mountain with him that day, wish they had turned around and gone down the mountain with Charlotte when she said she was turning back and would wait for them where they had begun the hike.
But she was independent and healthy, and the trail was busy, so they thought it would be no problem to meet up with her later.
Chris felt there was something wrong only when he got to the airport for the flight back to Johannesburg and she was not there. “I rationalised that if her phone was dead she would probably take a taxi to the airport. But when we went to check in, she wasn’t there and we got no response when we announced it over the PA system.”
Chris said he and his wife were due to fly on separate flights at the same time.
He put his daughter on her flight and delayed his return to that night. “I thought about whether I should stay or go back, and thought Nana Yaa would say to take care of the child. PICTURE PERFECT: Charlotte and Chris Nikoi celebrating 22 years of marriage
“When I landed at 9.30pm I called my daughter and asked: ‘Has mommy called you?’ When she said ‘no’, that was when I felt the first pang of real danger and I went straight to the police station at OR Tambo Airport.”
Chris joined a major search on the mountain but with no success.
Johann Marais, the head of Wilderness Search and Rescue, said: “We had 17 volunteers involved in a large search and we found no trace of anything.”
Bodies have been retrieved from the mountain many years after a person’s death and identified by clothing.
Chris described his wife as a very kind person, who started her career in banking before working for UN agencies around the world in human resources management. They were both born in Ghana.
Charlotte works in New York and he is based in Johannesburg.
Anyone with any information on Charlotte’s whereabouts is asked to contact Chris on 062-4395-189 or 079-1406-099, or lead investigator, warrant officer Philips on 083-244-3688