ABOUT US

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Nigeria does not have an official Missing Persons Database. Following the abduction of the Chibok Girls on April 14, 2014 and subsequent abductions across Nigeria, the Bring Back Our Girls Movement presented the creation of a Missing Persons Database as a possible tangible & constructive response by the federal government. There was silence.

In 2018, a framework was finally designed. However, when it was time to fund the pilot, there was silence again. In May 2019, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, challenged EiE to begin curating stories of missing people in Nigeria. His premise was simple – given the number of reported missing people based on his work and press reports of kidnappings, a missing persons database would embarrass the government. As such, there was no incentive to set it up. So last year, we took it upon ourselves to create a database of missing persons in Nigeria. Since June 2019, we have documented 110 missing people. 63 were found alive, while 12 were found dead. The project is wholly funded by EiE.