Psychiatrist Explains Mysterious Cases Of Memory Loss

A young girl who went missing in Asaba, Delta State, was found roaming the streets of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with no recollection of how she got there.

According to activist Harrison Gwamnishu and founder of Safe City Volunteer Foundation, in a video he posted on Facebook, the girl had travelled from Onitsha to Asaba and was last heard talking to her sister on the phone, saying she was at a traffic junction in Asaba.

However, phone tracking revealed that the call terminated at Ughelli, Delta State.

The girl’s disappearance and subsequent reappearance in Port Harcourt, over 100 kilometres away, had raised questions about the circumstances surrounding her vanishing.

Gwamnishu noted that this is not an isolated incident, citing similar cases where individuals went missing and later reappeared, often with no memory of their whereabouts.

In these cases, no ransom demands were made, and the victims’ phones and accounts were left untouched, ruling out kidnapping for financial gain.

“This is not the first, second or third case. If these people go missing like the way this girl went missing, they don’t call for ransom, so it is not kidnapping, they don’t collect money from their account, they don’t collect their phones. The other cases that happened, from investigation, they don’t touch their account, they don’t collect their phone or call for ransom. So what is going on?” Gwamnishu questioned.

Gwamnishu urged anyone with knowledge to come forward and help unravel the mystery.

In a similar case last month, a married woman, Mrs. Onyenye Lucia, disappeared while travelling to Onitsha and later reappeared in Agbor, Delta State, with her phone missing.

The activist appealed to the public to share any insights they may have, aiming to shed light on these perplexing disappearances and assist law enforcement agencies in addressing the issue.

“If you know anything about this, you have no idea of what is going on, how these people are disappearing and returning back after two days, if you know what it means, if you have any idea of how this thing works, I don’t know how it works.

“Please, come to the DM and let me know how it works. So that when another case happens, we have shared it and got ideas on how to tackle it. So that the police can know how to approach some of these issues,” he appealed.

Reacting to his post, Rachaella Obukohwo claimed that people fall victim to this after inhaling a ‘special’ perfume spread by the perpetrators to lure them to sleep.

“They have this perfume spread in their car. Once you inhale it you will become weak and fall asleep. I almost fell victim. It was my special needs child I called at my back that saved me when she started crying at my back. That was when I realized myself,” she wrote.

Kinsley Ikenna Chijioke, concurred with Obukohwo’s story, but added that “they use charms/drugs on them to lose consciousness.”

D Lanjan Chuwkuemeka also alleged that some commercial vehicles are used to kidnap people, with the gang sitting in the vehicles like normal passengers, unknown to the victim.

He also added that they use a handkerchief to release a substance in the vehicles, causing the victim to experience temporary memory loss.

“My brother luckily escaped them two years ago from Onitsha to Awkuzu,”; he claimed.

Wagbara Emmanuel Enyinnaya on his part asked a relevant question; “When she was found, was she cognitively sound? Was she coherent while speaking? This will help us establish if she was hypnotized or conscious of her environment? A proper history should be taken about her.”

On the mode of operation, he stated that the perpetrators target random individuals who are distracted or not paying attention to their surroundings.
“They may set out with no particular victim in mind and when they see a prey, they deploy their evil tactic. They always leverage on the person’s distraction before they do what they do. It’s like they work with some motorists too.

“I have entered a small bus sometime and the driver got so uneasy and pretended that his vehicle was malfunctioning. I sensed the calmness among the boys at the back. I had to alight and they all pretended to be pressing their phones. Imagine if it were a person who was not aware?,” he queried.

He called on the Nigeria Police Force to thoroughly search every vehicle and to be vigilant, especially when encountering someone who appears to be sleeping.

He advised that if they come across someone sleeping, they should immediately stop the vehicle, ask questions, and ensure the person’s safety, regardless of how stressed or disoriented they seem.

Despite the explanations, the main point of controversy remains: no ransom demands were made, and the victims’ phones and accounts were left untouched.

This has triggered speculations, with some suggesting the victims were targeted for ritual purposes, while others believe their eggs might have been harvested.

However, the police in Delta State, has denied receiving any reports of such cases. When contacted by THE WHISTLER, the State Police PRO, DCP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, stated, “We don’t have such (cases), pls.”

Seeking a scientific explanation for the baffling case, Consultant Psychiatrist at Pinnacle Medical Services, Dr. Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri, points to several possible causes.

“It could be a case of dissociative amnesia or dissociative fugue,” she says.

She explained that it is where a person suddenly travels or wanders away from home, loses memory of their identity or events, and returns confused with no recollection.

“This often happens due to emotional stress, trauma, shock, or overwhelming life pressure. The brain ‘shuts down’ certain memories as a protective survival response, similar to how a computer crashes under heavy load,” she explained.

Temporal lobe epilepsy is another possibility, where a seizure can cause sudden disorientation, wandering, and memory blackout for hours or days, Kadiri noted.

“The person may appear normal after, but can’t recall where they were. There’s no violence, no bank withdrawals, just a memory gap,”she explained.

The psychiatrist also suggested substance-induced memory loss as a possibility, where substances can cause amnesia, wandering, confusion, and delayed return home, even if the person didn’t knowingly take anything.

“ This could be due to drink spiking, chemical exposure, or certain medications,” she said.

She also noted that Post-Traumatic Dissociation could also cause that state explaining, “After a frightening event (accident, attack, trauma), the mind may block out memory and the person may go into a fugue-like wandering state.”

Kadiri noted that acute stress reaction or psychological shock can also lead to this behaviour, where a person “shuts down” mentally, leaves their location unintentionally, and forgets events during the crisis period.

She added that sleep disorders and automatic behaviour, though rare, can also cause a person to wander far from home with complete amnesia.

The expert attributed the cultural tendency to link unexplained disappearances to spiritual or supernatural causes to the mysterious nature of these cases.

However, she emphasised that neuroscience offers a more plausible explanation, revealing the brain’s protective shutdown mechanisms during overwhelming stress or neurological imbalance.

“Not every unexplained disappearance is spiritual. Many are neurological or psychological survival responses, where the brain protects itself by ‘switching off’ memory and autopiloting the body.” Kadiri said.

She advocated for normalizing clinical evaluation alongside cultural beliefs, urging people to rule out underlying medical conditions rather than jumping to conclusions.