Molly Kilete, Abuja

Justice Kogo Idrissa, of Sokoto State Judiciary, who went missing last week Saturday in a hospital where he was admitted has been found.

The judge was found at a petrol station in Nyanya, a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

He was reportedly seen at the petrol station by some concerned persons who alerted the police who immediately deployed personnel to pick him up.

Justice Idrissa was immediately taken to a hospital where he is receiving treatment.

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in and around the hospital to ensure he does not escape again.

Earlier, there was controversy over his disappearance.

Family sources said the serving judge was being treated for depression at Family Care Clinic, located at Area 11 Garki District of Abuja, before he suddenly left the premises.

Related News

The judge reportedly disappeared from the hospital in the early hours of last Saturday, shortly after he returned from the mosque, after the morning prayers.

Hospital sources told our correspondent that the patient was admitted last Wednesday, for depression-related illness and was doing well before he suddenly discharged himself.

The source, who declined to be named, said the police had since visited the hospital where they interrogated staff and demanded the CCTV recordings of that day which was promptly handed over to them.

According to sources, the CCTV, recordings showed how the judge left the hospital and boarded a vehicle, unaccompanied.

Detectives from the Federal Capital Territory Police Command handling the  investigation revealed that the owner of the vehicle had since been arrested and was now in police custody.

However, police sources told our correspondent that the inability of the owner of the vehicle to produce the driver he said he sold the vehicle to was making it difficult for investigators to make progress. According to the source, the owner who was arrested last Sunday after the matter was reported to the police, told his interrogators that he had sold the particular vehicle to somebody who didn’t have his address.

This was even as detectives have blamed family members of the judge for abandoning him without a caregiver at the hospital, knowing the level of his ailment.