An 85-year-old man, Pa Oluwole Adewumi, has cried out for assistance to locate his first son identified as Wole who he said he hasn’t set eyes on for the past 35 years.
In an interview with Punch which was monitored by The Vent Republic, Elder Adewumi who is a United Kingdom-trained legal practitioner, said he would be the happiest man in the universe if he could set his eyes on his son before he dies. According to him, Wole was schooling in Florida, United States, before his disappearance. He said his missing son was born in 1966 and started schooling in the UK before he (father) relocated his family to Nigeria.
According to Elder Adewunmi, Wole and his sister finished primary and secondary schools in Lagos and he thereafter sought admission for Wole in the US
He said: “My son’s situation worries me a lot. I want to see him before I die. Almost every day, I think about him. I gave birth to him in 1966; he is about 55 now. If my son was around, he would have occupied a high position either in government or in the private sector now.
“The last time I saw my son was in 1986 in the US. I took him to America to study in 1983. I enrolled him at a pre-university school in Miami, Florida, in preparation for his admission into a higher institution.
“I was going to America to monitor his progress in school. I used to go to see him every year and sometimes I used to go twice a year. Anytime he was leaving for classes, I would stay in the library and wait for him until he was through and we would return home together.
“During one of my visits to him after he spent a year and a half in that school, the school’s Director of Students’ Affairs, one Mr Clayborne, a white American, saw me in the library and requested that I should meet him in his office.
“On getting to his office, he asked me if my son was born in America. I replied that no, he was born in England. I asked him why the question and he replied that they were surprised at the level of his intelligence.
“My son, Wole, is a highly intelligent boy. I am yet to see his match. I’m not saying that he is brilliant because there is a difference between brilliance and intelligence. Wole is very intelligent. Things that he started doing at age 10, even adults cannot do them.
“Upon my return to Nigeria after Mr Clayborne asked me that question whether my son was born in America, Wole himself called me that I should send his birth certificate to him, that is, his British birth certificate. He travelled to America with his Nigerian passport from here. I didn’t suspect anything and I sent him his British birth certificate in 1986; he called to confirm that he received it after about a week. And that was the last I heard of him till today.”
The distraught dad said he has employed various means to search for his missing son but none yielded a positive result, adding that Wole’s elder sister, who is currently a Professor of Medicine in a Florida university, had also helped in the search to no avail.
“I went spiritual and I was told that he was alive but under a little bit of captivity. I want to see Wole before I die. He is my only son of his mother. I’m now 86 years old,” the octogenarian said.
