Lagos photographer ‘missing’ after boarding night bus to Kano

A Lagos photographer, Sulaimon Balogun, who boarded a night bus from Lagos to Kano to cover a wedding ceremony has gone missing.

His relatives and friends say they have been worried over his whereabouts and have been visiting the park in Okokomaiko and the police division in the area.

Nurudeen Balogun, the photographer’s brother, told this newspaper that the 31-year-old boarded a bus around 7 p.m. to Kano at the Alaba-Rago park, Okokomaiko, along the Lagos-Badagry expressway on March 2 to cover a wedding ceremony slated for March 4.

Mr Balogun said it was his brother’s fiancee who called him that his contact wasn’t reachable.

The fiancee, Taiwo, told this newspaper that she was in contact with him all through the journey until around 10 p.m.

“I was bathing, he called me and told me that he wanted to tell me something. He didn’t sound any different, he spoke to me like he normally talks,” she said.

“I called him back and it was then that his number wasn’t going anymore.”

Miss Taiwo said she called him several times until 10 p.m. when she had to call his brother (Nurudeen) to try to reach him from his end.

The search

Mr Balogun said their mother went to the park to ask about him but the park chairman said that her son and the other 17 passengers had an accident around 3 a.m. on Thursday in Kogi State and they have been buried in a mass grave.

“When they got there, they (park officials) said ‘that bus yesterday, they don die. All of them don die.’

”Then my mummy questioned them, is that the way people just die. And you cannot even call any of the family,” he said.

“She asked, so you have the manifest, then they went to bring it. They saw his name in the manifest but it was marked with two other names.

“And when she asked, the chairman could not give any concrete reason why the names were asterisked.”

The brother said that he also went there on Saturday and was told the same thing by the park chairman. At the time, his brother’s phone was still ringing.

Mr Balogun said a video of the accident was shared with him but the plate number in the manifest was different from the one in the video.

He said he was still not convinced because the driver’s name was not on the manifest. “There is a foul play here,” he said.

He said he left there for the Okoko Police Division to report the matter and was asked to come the next day.

On Sunday, he went to the police division and he was asked to “go and charter a bus.”

They went to the park with him but the chairman wasn’t there as he had gone to a state meeting.

Mr Balogun explained that he took the matter to the state headquarters in Ikeja and was advised by the Human Rights Desk at the Division to report at the Area E Command in Festac.

“While I was there, I got a call from Okoko that the park chairman was around, so I left my sister there. At the police station, the DPO asked the chairman to explain what happened,” he said.

“He (chairman) said they left the park and had an accident and nine people survived. And one died in the hospital and the remaining eight have been discharged.”

He said the chairman told the police a different version of the incident from what he told their mother.

“He told the police that the bus hit a tanker parked on the road but told their mother that the bus collided with a tanker and exploded due to a bush burning nearby,” Mr Balogun said.

He said the driver told the police that the passengers were burnt beyond recognition and the residents in the area took them to the mortuary but they were rejected hence the mass burial ”with police approval”.

Park reacts

Posing as a relative, this reporter visited the park on Saturday and met with the chairman, Auwalu Usaini.

He said the bus crashed and exploded killing almost all the passengers and driver.

Mr Usaini said concerning the mass burial, “I don’t know anything about burial.”

He said six people survived.

He also directed this reporter to the drivers who ply the route for further enquiries.

The drivers gave a gory picture of the burnt bus in Lokoja, Kogi State, adding that their colleague, an ‘expectant’ father, also lost his life.

They noted that the manifest also got burnt, adding that the family should go to the scene of the accident “to see things for themselves”.