Rotimi Morgan/
Nine months after the mysterious disappearance of a boy who allegedly annoyed a pastor in Agbor, Delta State, detectives at the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (FCIID), Alagbon, are out to solve the riddle.
On the instruction of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Abutu Yaro, the detectives have arrested Pastor Ifeanyi Agu of Divine Gospel Mission in Agbor, Umunede area of Delta.
The pastor is being asked to tell the police what happened to the 13-year-old missing boy after he allegedly threatened to kill him on a night he claimed to have found the boy raping his daughter.
The fatherless boy, Odinaka, is the pastor’s nephew, and he made him bear his surname when he enrolled him in school three years ago.
Pastor Agu had offered to train his sister’s son when the father refused to claim him.
“The boy was born out of wedlock. He has no father, so he bears the mother’s family name. We are yet to see anything linking the missing boy to rape. Even the pastor doesn’t believe his own story. He refused to produce a doctor’s report, and he has refused to bring the daughter for questioning,” the police boss told Newsmakers.
The pastor, who claimed to be 46 years old, told Newsmakers that the police should hold his septuagenarian mother instead of him and make her explain what happened to Odinaka the morning after he allegedly found the boy with his daughter, Gift.
Agu said that he had a doctor’s report to support his claim, but he couldn’t produce the report, when the police asked for it.
He told Newsmakers: “They wrote a petition that I kidnapped a boy that I was training, who was living with me. He stayed with me for up to four years since 2013.
“One day, after dinner, I was searching for my daughter, who normally sleeps in my room. I just wanted to check whether the girl had slept. I didn’t see her. I checked my mother’s room, and then the guest room. I opened the door and saw this boy holding my 9-year-old daughter.
“The girl told me that he had asked her to come and watch one film he got from school. I called my wife and my mum. I called my sister too. They begged me that it was very shameful for people to hear. After much pleading, I calmed down.”
Agu claimed that he did not beat the boy, but Odinaka’s mother, Ngozi, disagreed.
She fears that her son might have, inadvertently, been killed during Agu’s moment of rage when she claimed the boy was mercilessly beaten.
Everybody, except Pastor Agu, fears that something terrible must have happened to the boy who was found missing the morning after the alleged incident nine months ago.
Agu said, “They called me in the morning. Then, I was taking the girl to the hospital, and I had passed through police station to report, just in case.
“I left the boy with my mum at home, so I was in the hospital when they called me that the boy was missing.
“The same day, the boy’s mother came. Later, my wife left home to buy foodstuff. When she came back, she couldn’t see my mother and my sister. When they came back in the night, they said they had gone to look around.
“My sister had packed the boy’s load and took my mother along to Lagos. They didn’t raise alarm and they didn’t ask me anything. Four months after, I went to Enugu, because I serve as a Chaplain Officer. They called me. They brought army people and detained my wife and daughter when they didn’t see me.
“I didn’t see them until two months after, when I was invited by the police.”
The police in Delta didn’t make much headway on the matter. Five months after, detectives from Alagbon picked the case up and arrested Agu.
Yaro told Newsmakers that he asked his men to leave no stone unturned in their investigation.
He said, “Police must fight the battle of poor people who have nobody to fight for them.”
Agu has been running the Divine Gospel Mission, in Agbor, for nine years.
He spoke about trouble within his family, which made him to accuse his mother of complicity in the disappearance of the child.
He said, “Ever since my father died, there has not been peace at home. My mother had scattered the family. My mother can’t be without that boy; she would have died. When she’s around, you can’t question or beat the boy. The police must ask her where the boy is.”
Odinaka was a JSS3 student when he went missing. He was described as a brilliant boy that was always leading in his class.
Officers have appealed to members of the public to contact the nearest police station if there is information that could be used to solve the riddle of the missing boy.
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