Posted by By CHRIS ANUCHA on
Controversy has continued to trail the sudden disappearance of a young lady in Lagos, Cecilia Okafor, after she was sent to deposit some money in the bank by her boss, Chief Andy Ezenwa.
...She went to bank to deposit N1m and has not been seen since then
Controversy has continued to trail the sudden disappearance of a young lady in Lagos, Cecilia Okafor, after she was sent to deposit some money in the bank by her boss, Chief Andy Ezenwa.
While the family of the missing 26-year-old girl is pointing fingers at her boss, Ezenwa is alleging that the girl ran away with the money she was asked to deposit in the bank.
The missing girl, who holds a National Diploma (ND) certificate from the Federal Polytechnic, Okoh, Anambra State, came to Lagos for Industrial Training (IT) before she got a job in Andy Investment West African Limited, Ojuelegba, Surulere, on August 11, 2007.
According to the missing girl's elder sister, Juliet Okafor, who also signed as her guarantor, Cecilia was only two days in the company when she was given Three million, three thousand naira to deposit in the bank.
He said the sister, who discovered the N10, 000 excess, returned it to the company, adding that the next day, her sister was again sent to deposit two million, five thousand naira in the bank and also returned N5,000 excess to the company.
Juliet said her sister worked at the Ojuelegba office for two weeks before she was transferred to the Ijesha branch.
She told Daily Sun how she received a phone call from Cecilia's colleague in the office, Amaka, on September 7, informing her that the girl was sent to deposit N1,010,000 in the bank at about 12 noon but had not returned.
The girl was said to have gone to the bank with a security guard from the company, who claimed he accompanied her to the bank and left her there. She said when the bank was contacted, they admitted that her sister entered into the banking hall but claimed that she went to ease herself and never returned.
Since September 7, the girl, who hails from Umuhu Ezechi, in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State, has not been seen. But as Juliet was grieving, searching for her sister, she has been detained severally by the police on the instruction of the company where her sister worked.
Daily Sun gathered that she was detained at Area ‘C', Surulere, on September 8 and Zone 2 headquarters, Onikan, Lagos. Since the incident occurred, Juliet had been in and out of police cell, owing to the fact that Cecilia is her sister and that she signed as her guarantor.
Worried about the mysterious disappearance of their daughter, the family of the girl petitioned the Lagos State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, urging him to investigate the role of the owner of the company in the disappearance of their daughter.
The letter, which was written on their behalf by lawyers from Eze and Associate Chambers and dated September 13, 2007, among others, narrated how the victim got the job at the Andy Investment W.A. Limited before she disappeared.
The letter also explained how Juliet was detained by the police, granted bail and the futile efforts by the family to find the missing girl.
In the letter also, the family pledged to sign an undertaking to pay whatever amount of money that was missing if it was confirmed that Cecilia was responsible, provided she is found alive.
"In this era of kidnap boom and increased ritualistic tendencies of many, our clients would prefer to pay the sum allegedly stolen for a living Cecilia than the current situation whereby it is being intimidated at police station to pay for money they are yet to know anything about," the petitioners said. The family also called for the transfer of the case for proper and unbiased investigation.
Daily Sun gathered that the officer in-charge of the Legal Department, Chris Owai, a Superintendent of Police (SP), in a memo to the commissioner of police, described the case as a serious one as no one knows what actually happened.
He suggested that the matter be transferred to the CP's Monitoring Unit "with a view to discretely investigating same." He further said: "The company is supposed to have applied for a police escort in the circumstance. Arrangement should be made to declare the said Cecilia Okafor wanted and given it the widest publicity, please."
Obviously fed up with the way the police at Zone 2 had been handling the matter, the family again wrote a letter to the acting Inspector General of police, Mr. Mike Okiro, to wade into the matter.
The family also narrated how the police had been detaining the missing girl's elder sister, Juliet. The petitioners also accused Chief Ezenwa of writing a petition that prompted the transfer of the case from Surulere police Division to Zone 2, after accusing Cecilia of defrauding him of millions of naira.
The petition further accused Zone 2 of refusing to inquire about Cecilia, notwithstanding that she had not been found for more than a month now.
The letter said: "The official position at Zone 2 remains that they are investigating a case of fraud not that of a missing person notwithstanding the glaring contradictions in maintaining such a lame position."
The family, therefore, appealed to the IG to transfer the case to competent officers "who will not be shy to call a spade by its name."
When contacted on phone, Chief Ezenwa refused to comment on the matter but referred this reporter to the Investigating Police Officers (IPOs) handling the matter, for comments.