ALKALI AND OTHER MISSING PEOPLE

The Alkali case has again drawn attention to the issue of missing people across the country

WIF ANY HARM HAS COME TO THE GENERAL, ALL THE CULPRITS INVOLVED MUST BE FISHED OUT AND BROUGHT TO JUSTICE

here is Major General Idris Alkali (rtd)? Currently, an abandoned mining pit filled with water is being dredged at Dura – Du District in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State to answer the question. We hope he is found alive.

General Alkali, the immediate past Chief of Administration of the Nigerian Army, was reportedly on his way to Bauchi from Abuja when he vanished midway on 3rd September. The Nigerian Army quickly raised a search party to find the whereabouts of the missing senior officer. Acting on intelligence, the army narrowed its search to the pond to unravel the mystery. “The aim of the operation is to find the retired missing senior officer either dead or alive,” said Kayode Ogunsanya, Deputy Director, Army Public Relations in a statement last week. “This will enable his family to re-unite with him if found alive or for the family and Nigerian Army to give him a befiting burial if he is dead.”

Interestingly, the search is paying off handsomely. On 29th September, the army reportedly found his black Toyota Corolla car, a customised white T-Shirt with Nigerian Army logo with the general’s name inscribed on it as well as a pair of canvass shoe belonging to the missing officer. Three days later, the search party pulled out two additional vehicles, a Toyota Hiace bus reportedly declared missing with the driver three months earlier and a Rover car declared missing with its occupants since 2013. How many missing people ended up in this water body? “It is a sad moment for any right thinking Nigeria to think that crime is being committed almost on a daily basis,” said Major General Augustine Agundu in apparent reference to the startling discoveries.

While we commend the army authorities for their commitment to getting a closure to this notable case, they must be professional in dealing with the surrounding community to ensure their cooperation in order to get to the bottom of the unfolding mystery. If any harm has come to the general, all the culprits involved must be fished out and brought to justice.

Meanwhile, the Alkali case has again drawn attention to the issue of missing people across the country whose whereabouts remain unknown. Their families and friends are experiencing grief without closure because they do not have the resources to embark on the kind of search the military is doing for one of its own. The police are unreliable. James Olomo, a professor of Nuclear Physics at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, for instance, has been missing since 18th October 2013. He simply disappeared between Calabar and Lagos. The family is still in tremendous grief.

Unfortunately, the number of missing Nigerians is rising and bringing so much uncertainty and misery among their loved ones. Only in August the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported that no fewer than 17,000 Nigerians were missing. The report attributed the unfortunate development to rampant conflicts – incidents consequent on the Boko Haram insurgency and other sundry acts of violence in various parts of the country. More disturbing is that over 7,100 of the missing are children. For the affected families, living through the ordeal of having a relation missing can be a most traumatic experience, a major source of stress.

The National Human Rights Commission ( NHRC) in collaboration with some ministries, departments and agencies and civil society organisations, about two years, started the process for the establishment and management of missing persons’ database and how to bring closure to thousands of people who disappear without trace. But it is evident that they are not doing enough to help families to know the whereabouts of their loved ones.