Police speak out over alleged abandonment of student who went missing after tracking fee payment

Police in Nigeria’s southeastern Enugu state have denied allegations they abandoned the search for a missing student. University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN).

The student, Flourish Uzodinma, has been missing since November 2024.

The Enugu State Police spokesperson, Daniel Ndukwe, explained the police position in a statement on Saturday.

How it started

A social media user, Ege Obetta, in a post on his X handle Thursday evening, the authorities of the Nsukka urban police station sounded the alarm by announcing that they had abandoned the search for the missing student.

The man, whose X profile indicates that he is a lawyer, claimed that the police authorities, upon request, were given N25,000 to find the missing student.

Mr. Obetta claimed that after the payment, the police told the father of the missing student that they had traced the missing girl to Calabar, but could not continue because they did not had no contact with the Calabar police.

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He also claimed that the police then asked the father of the missing girl to go to Calabar and rescue his daughter on his own.

The social media user called on the national police spokesperson, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, to intervene in the matter.

The police speak

But Mr Ndukwe, a deputy police commissioner, denied the allegations and called them “misleading and baseless”.

The police spokesperson said Ms Uzodimma was an 18-year-old first-year computer robotics student at UNN.

He said the student left her parents’ residence in Owerre-Eze Orba, a community in Udenu Local Government Area of ​​Enugu State, on November 28 to an unknown destination.

Mr Ndukwe said although the father, Charles Uzodimma, contacted the police and reported the matter on December 3, he did not ask the police to rescue his daughter and he was not asked to pay fees. aftercare fee of 25,000 naira.

He said that despite Mr Uzodimma’s insistence that the matter be treated as “mere information”, the police had opened an investigation.

The spokesperson said Mr Uzodimma later independently hired a private tracker to whom he paid 25,000 naira for tracking, but efforts to locate his daughter’s mobile phone failed as he was off.

He said Mr Uzodimma later informed police that Flourish had been seen in a Facebook photo with another girl with whom he had warned her not to associate.

Mr Ndukwe said the other girl’s phone number was traced to Calabar, Cross River State.

He did not confirm whether the second follow-up was carried out by the police and whether the parents had paid for it.

The spokesperson also did not specify whether the police had gone to the location followed for a possible rescue of the young girl.

“Contrary to allegations of police inaction, Mr Uzodimma stopped collaborating with the police, thereby hindering the investigation,” Mr Ndukwe said.

The police spokesperson said the case was still under investigation, although “progress has been hampered by the lack of cooperation from Flourish’s parents”.