Mrs. Oluwafunmilayo Samuel, the wife of telecoms worker Olajide Oredipe, recounted to The Punch correspondent how her husband disappeared after the boat he boarded on his return from Cameroon capsized, leaving his whereabouts unknown three weeks after the incident.
When asked about his occupation, she explained that he worked with a Chinese telecommunications company in Lagos. Although the job was in Lagos, the family lived in Ibadan, and her husband hailed from Sagamu in Ogun State.
According to The Punch, she was then asked to explain the destination her husband had in mind when he attempted to cross the river separating Cameroon from Taraba State.
Further talking, she said, “He went to Cameroon to buy cocoa. He was doing a cocoa business at Abong village in Taraba State, so he went to Cameroon to source some cocoa. We were told that he sent his cocoa through the first boat. The boat was already full, so he had to join another one, which later capsized with four people in it.”
She explained that those who survived the boat mishap told the family he was the only passenger who could not swim to safety. According to them, after the others managed to get out of the water, they called out his name but received no response. She added that, from what she gathered, no one even went back into the river to search for him.
She said her husband had initially travelled to the village because of a work assignment. When the project began to pose difficulties, he decided to engage in a small business to support himself, which led him to Cameroon to buy some goods.
When his employers noticed that they had not heard from him for several days, they contacted the team working in the village where he had been assigned. That team was involved in building network infrastructure, and it was through them that the company first learned about the boat accident and the efforts to locate him.
The company later informed her, about two days after the incident, saying the search was ongoing and that they were waiting for his body to resurface in the river.
She said she reached out to one of his colleagues in the village, only to be told that he was no longer there. The colleague explained that their last conversation was when her husband requested money in his bank account, as he had already converted all his cash into CFA. He told the colleague he needed funds in his Nigerian account to complete some transactions.
According to her, the colleague said he eventually sent the money and forwarded the receipt to her husband via WhatsApp. However, the message never delivered—there were no double ticks—and her husband never acknowledged receiving the funds. Since then, the colleague had repeatedly tried calling him, but none of his phone lines had connected.
