I knew something was wrong when he did not come home to say hello as he always did. The next day, I called his workstation at 11am but they told me that they had not seen him since he left the previous evening.
Dennis Ongadia lost his job when Covid-19 struck and within no time, he had sunk into depression.
The 34-year-old is Ugandan and lived with his family in Kampala. With time, he got a gig as a computer technician in Acacia.
By this time, however, he was on medication as his symptoms had gotten worse.
His mother Mary Asekenye told the Star that she put her son in psychiatric care last year when his condition deteriorated.
He had become more aggressive, kept to himself, was rude and had stopped taking his medication and seeing the doctor.
"He complained that the drugs made him hyperactive and only added to his frustration," a teary Asekenye said.
“He did not get any better. One time, he jumped out of a car while [being] taken to hospital, insisting he was tired of the medication.”
On February 28, Ongadia left his workplace, walked to a bus stop and took a Kenya-bound bus.
It was around 7pm. More than a month later he has not returned. His phone remains switched off.
CCTV footage showed he wore a black hoodie and had a small crossbody bag.
"He went to work as usual and spent the whole day there though his colleagues said he was unusually quiet," Asekenye said.
"I knew something was wrong when he did not come home to say hello as he always did. The next day, I called his workstation at 11am but they told me that they had not seen him since he left the previous evening."
She filed a missing person report at a police station and started looking for him in hospitals and police cells.
"He was nowhere," the mother said.
On March 4, there was a glimmer of hope when she was told that Ongadia borrowed a phone from a security guard at OTC in Nairobi and called his friend in Kakamega.
The friend's name is William.
“He told William that he was in Nairobi but since he was busy, William asked my son not to move and that he would call back shortly,” Asekenye said.
When William called back, the mother said, the owner of the phone Ongadia had used said he had already left.
“The man told William that he was a security guard in town and that Ongadia had only borrowed his phone to make the call,” she said.
This information confirmed their suspicion that Ongadia was in Kenya.
They then travelled to Kenya and filed a missing person report at Central police station, under OB 45/16/3/2022.
With the help of the officers, the family looked for their relative in police stations, hospitals, mental health facilities, mortuaries and among friends and relatives but no one had seen him.
Asekenye said whenever she talked to her son about his condition, Ongadia would say that some people were after his life.
“He kept saying some people who wanted him dead were looking for him. He moved out of his house and went to stay with his cousins before coming to stay with us,” the mother said.
The family can be reached on +254 724 994 390 or +256 777 747 189.
Edited by Josephine M. Mayuya
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