The Lagos State Police Command is on the alert following the sudden reappearance of a lady, Margaret Ikumu, who was declared dead and buried by her friends in the state.
According to her relative, Tony Iji, in a petition to the Commissioner, Lagos State Police Command, Hakeem Odumosu, the family became aware via Facebook that she was dead and buried without the friends notifying the family.
Iji, in the petition dated May 15, 2020, said Ikumu’s death and burial were announced via Facebook by two of her friends she was residing with in Lagos, Marvellous Mary and Nneka Buddy.
He said in the petition that since the saw the Facebook post, they had been searching for their sister.
The petition said: “Since then, all efforts by our family and our community here in Lagos to know the cause and circumstances surrounding Margaret’s death have been rebuffed by Marvellous and Nneka, who are the only persons with information about her death. They later sent a chat message on WhatsApp to a member of our family with a picture of a casket showing that Margaret had been buried.
“All efforts by members of the family to get more details about the death and eventual burial of Margaret from Marvellous and Nneka Buddy have proved abortive due to their refusal to co-operate with us. Miss Marvellous Mary has threatened to discard her phone number 07040869026 after the burial as a way of blocking us from further reaching her and all efforts to call Margaret’s phone number, 0811377322, have not yielded any result as the phone is permanently switched off.
“We, therefore, appeal to the police authority under your leadership to intervene by investigating the incident with a view to establishing the facts and circumstances surrounding her death and eventual burial without the knowledge and consent of her family.”
However, Ikumu has suddenly reappeared, Iji said in another letter to Odumosu.
Iji said Ikumu claimed she was not aware of her obituary announcement and burial on her Facebook wall.
He said in the letter: “To our surprise, in the evening of May 16, the unexpected result from the massive media publicity happened; Margaret, who was purportedly deceased, was forced out of hiding when she was noticed online through her Facebook page, which was offline throughout the period.
“When contacts were made with her on Facebook, she responded and later received phone calls from her mother and few of her uncles, and she told them that she did not know the reason for the obituary announcement on her Facebook wall.
“Our findings showed that the whole thing was a deliberate conspiracy by Margaret in connivance with her friends to stage-manage a fake story about her death to confuse her immediate family and the larger society for whatever reason that is best known to them.
“Till now, we have not been able to extract from her the reasons for her action, because she is still largely incommunicado even though she has affirmed that she is alive.”
Reacting to the development, the spokesman of the Lagos State Police Command, Bala Elkana, said: “I am aware of the petition.
“We have been able to identify the location of the girl.
“She’s alive.
“We will investigate the report of her being dead and the reason behind it.”
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