The victim, a roll-out manager at the Globacom company, was abducted at about 12:30 p.m. on 6 May 2025, while returning from an official assignment in Umuaka, Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State.
Funmi Adetona, wife of Globacom employee Olaoluwa Adetona, has appealed to the telecommunications company, security agencies and other Nigerian authorities to step up efforts to find her husband.
The family said the 49-year-old was abducted when gunmen attacked him and two expatriates in the area.
The two expatriates reportedly escaped during the attack, while the hoodlums took away Mr Adetona and his vehicle, a Toyota Hilux truck.
In a series of video clips uploaded on Facebook on Sunday, Mrs Adetona told reporters in Ibadan, Oyo State, that she first became suspicious when she called her husband on the evening of 6 May 2025, and an unknown person answered his phone.
When she asked to speak with the phone’s owner, the person – believed to be one of her husband’s abductors – insulted her and refused to hand the phone over.
Repeated attempts to reach her husband through his other telephone line were unsuccessful, prompting her to contact his housemate in Imo State.
She said the housemate initially told her he also could not reach the husband since morning, before later confirming that her husband had been kidnapped.
Mrs Adetona explained that her husband had gone out for a site acquisition assignment with the two expatriates who had travelled from Lagos.
She was surprised to learn that the two expatriates were released while her husband remained in captivity.
The wife said this development raised suspicion because the company did not contact her immediately after the alleged incident.
She only began making inquiries after learning of the incident herself.
“Since that day till now, I have not spoken with my husband. I have not heard his voice or received any direct communication from him,” she said, shedding tears.
Mrs Adetona further alleged that the people who had her husband’s telephone later demanded N1 million before she could speak with him.
When she informed some of his colleagues, she was advised not to make further calls because the company was handling the situation.
The wife claimed that she was subsequently informed that the company had paid the ransom and that her husband would be released.
But that did not happen.
She expressed concern over what she described as inadequate communication between the company and the family.
Mrs Adetona later travelled to Lagos to meet Globacom officials, including the head of the Roll-out Department and the company’s chief security officer, to obtain information about her husband.
She was initially told that officials were unaware of the incident, but she insisted that the company ought to have information about an employee who disappeared while carrying out an official assignment.
She and other family members also travelled to Imo State, where they visited the police and sought assistance in tracing her husband.
“From May, June, July, August, September and even November (2025), we kept hearing that they were working on it. But nobody could tell us exactly what was happening,” she said.
Mrs Adetona said the family also met with Globacom officials in Lagos in November after receiving little or no information for several months.
She alleged that the family was repeatedly assured that efforts were ongoing to locate her husband, but that no concrete information about his whereabouts was subsequently communicated to them.
The development, she said, had taken a heavy toll on the family, particularly their three children, who continue to ask about their father.
She explained that before his disappearance, her husband regularly travelled between Imo and Ibadan to see his family, adding that his prolonged absence had been difficult for the children to understand.
“My children are not seeing their daddy, and they keep asking me every day, ‘Where is our daddy?’ I tell them that he went on a trip and that he will soon return.
“But it is over a year now. How long do I continue telling them that? He is across the country.
“Before this happened, he used to come home every fortnight to check on us and then return to work. Now, for over a year, we have not seen him,” she said.
The wife stressed that the disappearance had affected her husband’s wider family, especially his mother.