The Ogun State Government has proposed a new legal framework that abolishes the widely observed practice of waiting 24 hours before reporting missing persons, saying immediate action is critical to improving rescue efforts.
Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Oluwasina Ogungbade (SAN), made this known on Tuesday during an interview on Frontline on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu, while explaining one of four criminal justice bills approved by the Ogun State Executive Council for transmission to the House of Assembly.
The Missing Persons Bill, among the GLOVES Bill is Intended to streamline police responses, this statute provides a unified legal framework for investigating missing persons cases. Currently, investigators face massive regulatory roadblocks when attempting to track individuals quickly. The new law removes these bottlenecks, giving law enforcement agencies accelerated authority to access financial records, personal data, and communication materials critical to locating missing victims or tracking down abductors.
According to him, the proposed Missing Persons Bill seeks to remove delays that often hinder investigations and rescue operations.
“You probably would be aware of this practice where people will report others as missing only to be advised to wait for 24 hours or 48 hours before coming. That now is being outlawed. There’s now a duty to report as early as possible,” he said.
He added that research has consistently shown that the first 24 hours after a disappearance are crucial in locating missing persons.
“Research has shown that the first 24 hours are crucial in cases of missing persons,” he stated.
Ogungbade explained that the proposed legislation would impose penalties on individuals who fail to promptly report the disappearance of persons whose whereabouts they are reasonably expected to know.
He said: “And where a person who ought to report for example, a father who knows his child is missing, or a mother who knows her daughter, or somebody whose presence or location they should know is missing, fails to do so, it carries a penalty under this law”
The Attorney-General disclosed that his office receives numerous reports of missing persons across all age groups and lamented that existing laws do not adequately empower law enforcement agencies to respond quickly.
He cited unresolved disappearance cases, including that of a former student who reportedly went missing after leaving Olabisi Onabanjo University to visit her boyfriend in Sagamu, as well as another woman who disappeared in Ota.
According to him, investigators often encounter significant delays in obtaining banking, telecommunications and other records needed to trace missing persons.
“It’s been one challenge or the other getting access to data that would help law enforcement to track their movements” he lamented.
To address these challenges, Ogungbade said the proposed law would establish stronger collaboration between the Ministry of Justice, the Nigeria Police Force and the judiciary to enable faster access to vital records during investigations.
“There will be collaboration between my office and the Office of the Commissioner of Police that expressly is stated in the bill and also with the judiciary. This bill makes provision for the police or any law enforcement agency to apply ex parte to get certain records from service providers. But then in extreme cases, the police can write directly to the person holding those records to make them available under penalty of law,” he said.
He explained that the bill would also introduce rapid response protocols for child abduction cases, including immediate alerts to transport unions, motor parks and other relevant agencies once a child is reported missing.
” My office will be working in concert with the commissioner of police of Ogun state, putting certain people on standby. Because in most cases, when you steal a child, you firstly have to transport that child outside of Ogun state. So there’ll be protocols in place, for example, alerting all major car parks, alerting transport unions.,” he said.
The Attorney-General said the proposal was also designed to break bureaucratic bottlenecks that often slow investigations, adding that closer collaboration among security agencies would become even more effective with the planned introduction of state policing.
He maintained that the overall objective of the bill is to ensure prompt reporting, faster investigations and improved chances of locating missing persons before vital evidence disappears or victims are moved beyond the state’s borders.
Ogungbade also disclosed that the state government was seeking to address the growing concern over ritual killings through a dedicated legislation that would criminalise the use of human beings and human parts for ritual purposes, rather than relying solely on existing murder and human remains-related offences. He said the proposed law was designed to tackle the root causes of the crime and provide a more effective legal framework to curb the practice.
“What we have all been doing in Ogun State and I believe in all others is to charge persons involved in ritual killings for murder and in some cases for tampering with human remains. We normally get the sentence of death but that does not actually address the root issues. So we feel that by having a law that actually criminalizes rituals involving the use of human parts.”
Ogungbade expressed confidence that the proposed legislation would set a new standard in Nigeria’s fight against ritual killings and human sacrifice, describing it as a far-reaching intervention capable of addressing the menace more effectively.
“It will be a first in Nigeria and I am convinced that it will be far-reaching, at least to cover up once and for all this menace of human sacrifice.”
