A 68-year-old Nigerian man, Joseph Ibironke who claimed to have spent 30 years abroad before being spiritually summoned home by his relatives without taking any of his belongings along, has now located one of his children.
The man went to the media some weeks ago to appeal for support to feed and locate his lost family.
He claimed he was a bank manager in Nigeria many years ago before relocating abroad and settling down there with a new wife and family.
Ibironke said he was doing very well, with a flourishing business and posh cars until he mysteriously started crying that he wanted to return to Nigeria.
According to him, a couple of days before this, he had dreamt that he was forced into a plane heading for Nigeria and he found himself in Oshodi in that dream.
Ibironke said the dream manifested in reality when he started behaving strangely and shouting that he wanted to come to Nigeria.
He claimed that they took him to many psychiatric hospitals in the US without any solution until his family put him on a plane and sent him to Nigeria.
He claimed his relatives who were behind his mysterious return stripped him of all he brought home at the airport and dumped him in a hospital for the mentally challenged apparently because he was behaving erratically.
Ibironke said he was taken to Ipa Eniyan Koto Prayer Ministry in Ifo Ogun State, where he was tied down so as not to escape and spiritually nurtured back into his senses.
He said he spent six years there before he was released.
By the time he came out, his relatives were nowhere to be found and he was homeless until a good Samaritan offered him a place to stay and bought him some clothes to wear.
He said he was given the transport fare to travel to Ibadan to find a local radio station that broadcast similar cases.
On the radio programme, he narrated his experience and called on anyone who knew anything about his previous life in Nigeria before he travelled out to link him up with his past wife and children.
He claimed he had a wife in Nigeria with children before he relocated, but had lost contact with them all. Neither was he able to trace his second family in the US.
Now, fortune has smiled on him as one of his children in Nigeria before he relocated has reunited with him. The emergence of the son has lent credence to the old man’s story.
Many had taken Joseph Ibironke’s story with a pinch of salt because there was no evidence to back any of his claims, beyond the fact that he swore that he was telling the truth.
The emergence of John Ibironke, a building contractor from Igbara Oke, Ondo State, who corroborated the story of his father has put a stamp of authenticity on most of his (Joseph’s) claims.
John has now reunited with his father Joseph Ibironke.
John mentioned that he was only a few months old when his father left Nigeria in 1980. He said he was raised by his mother and an older brother who passed away in 1987.
He said he faced serious challenges when his mother remarried.
Consequently, he lived with his father’s elder brother, Williams Ibironke, in Lagos. Despite knowing little about his father’s life abroad, John perceived him as a successful businessman who cared for his family.
He was quoted as saying: “I had always worried my mother that I needed to find my father, but she didn’t have the time to do that despite my insistence.”
Yearning to reunite with his father, John embarked on a search in 2016, returning to his hometown, Igbara Oke, hoping to find relatives with information about Joseph.
Travelling from Lagos to Ilesa, he met his mother and her new family before proceeding to Igbara Oke. The effort was fruitless.
However, recently, John received a call from the son of one of his father’s brothers, revealing Joseph’s return to Nigeria and providing a phone number.
Excited and shocked, John called his father, initiating their first conversation.
