A Lagos photographer, Sulaimon Balogun, who boarded a night bus from Lagos to Kano to cover a wedding ceremony has disappeared.
His family and friends say they have been concerned about his whereabouts and have been visiting the park in Okokomaiko and the local police division.
Nurudeen Balogun, the photographer’s brother, told this newspaper that the 31-year-old boarded a bus at around 7 pm for Kano in Alaba-Rago Park, Okokomaiko, along the Lagos-Badagry highway on March 2 to cover a wedding ceremony scheduled for March 4.
Balogun said it was his brother’s fiancee who called him because his contact was unavailable.
The fiancée, Taiwo, told this newspaper that she was in contact with him throughout the journey until around 10 p.m.
“I was taking a shower, he called me and said he wanted to tell me something. It didn’t sound any different, she talked to me like she normally talks,” she said.
“I called him back and that’s when his number no longer worked.”
Ms. Taiwo said that she called him several times until 10 p.m. when she had to call her brother (Nurudeen) to try to reach him from her end.
The search
Mr. Balogun said his mother went to the park to ask about him, but the park president said his son and the 17 other passengers had an accident around 3 a.m. Thursday in Kogi State and have been buried in a common grave.
“When they got there, they (park officials) said ‘that bus yesterday, they don’t die. They all don’t die.
“So my mom asked them, is this how people die? And you can’t even call anyone in the family,” she said.
“She asked, for you to have the manifest, then they went to bring it. They saw her name on the manifest but it was marked with two other names.
Park President Entrance
“And when she asked, the president was unable to give any concrete reason why the names were marked with an asterisk.”
The brother said that he also went there on Saturday and that the president of the park told him the same thing. At that time, his brother’s phone was still ringing.
Balogun said a video of the accident was shared with him, but the license plate number on the manifest was different from the one on the video.
He said he was still not convinced because the driver’s name was not on the manifest. “There is foul play here,” he said.
He said he went from there to the Okoko Police Division to report the matter and was asked to come back the next day.
On Sunday, he went to the police division and was asked to “go and rent a bus.”
They went to the park with him, but the president was not there because 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 Division Human Rights Office to report it to Area E Command in Festac.
“While I was there, I got a call from Okoko that the park president was nearby, so I left my sister there. At the police station, the DPO asked the president to explain what happened,” she said.
“He (president) said that they left the park and had an accident and nine people survived. And one died in hospital and the remaining eight have been discharged.”
He said the president told police a different version of the incident than he told his mother.
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“He told police that the bus hit a tanker truck parked on the road, but told his mother the bus collided with a tanker truck and exploded because of a bush that burned nearby,” Balogun said.
He said the driver told police the passengers were burned beyond recognition and local residents took them to the morgue but were turned away, so the mass burial “with police approval.”
park reacts
Posing as a relative, this reporter visited the park on Saturday and met with the president, Auwalu Usaini.
He said the bus crashed and exploded, killing nearly all of the passengers and the driver.
Alabarago Park, Okokomaiko
Usaini said of the mass burial: “I don’t know anything about burial.”
He said six people survived.
He also directed this reporter to drivers traveling the route for further inquiries.
The drivers gave a bloody picture of the burning bus in Lokoja, Kogi state, adding that their colleague, a ‘future’ father, was also killed.
They noted that the manifest was also burned, adding that the family must go to the scene of the accident “to see things for themselves.”