A man named Fouad Willoughby is distressed over the sudden disappearance of his three-year-old son, Abdul-Muqseet Willoughby, during the Eid festival on Sunday at their family residence in Ajagun Lane, Lagos Island.
Willoughby, who resides outside Lagos and had come for the Salah holiday at his parents’ home, recounted leaving his son in the compound with family members while he assisted with ram slaughtering after returning from Eid prayers. The compound, bustling with activity from various households performing the ritual, made it challenging to pinpoint when Abdul-Muqseet went missing.
“He was last seen sitting with my mother and nephew, both young children. My mother, not being physically agile, didn’t realize when he wandered off. Unlike his elder brother, who is known to the neighbors, Abdul-Muqseet is new here, so no one recognized him,” Willoughby explained.
Upon realizing his son was missing around 10 a.m., Willoughby immediately raised an alarm and launched a search effort involving neighbors, mosques, and the Adeniji Police Station, where a report was filed. Friends and bloggers joined in spreading his son’s photo online as part of the search efforts.
Willoughby expressed his determination not to leave Lagos without his son, as he had come with all six of his children for the holiday. Efforts to reach the spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command for comments on the situation were unsuccessful at the time of reporting.
In a separate incident, a nine-year-old girl named Patience, who had gone missing from Rotras Crescent in the Meiran area of Lagos State, was found in Sango-Ota, Ogun State, following a search effort and police report filed by her guardians after eight days of her disappearance.
