On March 2, Balogun Sulaimon Aremu boarded a vehicle from Alaba to Kano, but that was the last time anyone heard a word from him.

Hammed Salaudeen, one of Aremu’s close friends, told FIJ that he boarded a bus heading to Kano at the Rago Motor Park in Alaba, Lagos, and then he stopped hearing from him.

After an unusual silence from Aremu, Salaudeen said he called the person he was to meet, but the fellow said he had not seen him.

Aremu’s family learned of his disappearance and immediately tracked his phone to Kano, said Salaudeen, and the family went to the park later to verify if Aremu had boarded a car at the park.

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“We confirmed that his name was in the logbook at the park. We met with the chairman of the park, who told us that the bus he boarded did not get to Kano. He said there was a fatal accident in Kogi and the bus got burnt. He said they couldn’t save anyone from it,” Salaudeen said.

“He said every person in the vehicle died, and the company did a mass burial for everyone in it. From our findings, we discovered that the phone got to Kano.”

Salaudeen said the family took police officers to the park to quiz the chairman, but he made inconsistent statements.

“Before we took a police officer to the park, the chairman said the bus got into an accident along Kogi and six passengers were rescued, and they took them to the hospital,” he said.

“When we went with the police on March 10, he said they found everyone in the bus dead. He said they did a mass burial for them. This happened and he contacted no one from the families of the supposed deceased people.”

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According to Salaudeen, the family discovered that Aremu penned his mother’s contact details as those of his next of kin before he booked his ticket. But till now, he said, no one had told her that her son was a victim of a fatal accident.

“With the phone tracked down to Kano, and with the information given to us by the chairman, something doesn’t seem right,” Salaudeen said.

When FIJ contacted Muhammed Balogun, Aremu’s elder brother, he confirmed that his brother had gone missing since March 9, after he boarded a bus at Rago Park in Alaba.

He also said that the police had arrested the chairman of the park and put him in detention.

“When we went to the park to arrest him, we realised he had run away. But we caught him later,” he said.

FIJ contacted Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State police spokesperson, but he did not answer his calls. At press time, he had not responded to a text sent to him.