In a heartwarming turn of events, an elderly woman suffering from dementia who had gone missing for some weeks was successfully reunited with her family at the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development (MYSD) by the Commissioner, Hon. Mobolaji Ogunlende and the Permanent Secretary, Pharm Toyin Oke-Osayintolu.
The Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA) had deployed one of its Mobile Registration teams to the Lagos State Rehabilitation Centre, Majidun, Ikorodu after its General Manager, Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola saw a post on the MYSD social media handle that the Ministry needed to trace the identity of an elderly woman who was found by a Good Samaritan and subsequently rescued by the Ministry.
The GM said, “The LASRRA team proceeded to collect the biometrics of the elderly woman (photograph and fingerprints). After a thorough search, the woman’s information could not be found, which showed that she had not registered with LASRRA. The Agency then took a step further by casting a wider net via the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) database. As a result, her identity and other information about her, which included her residence, was found and sent to the Ministry.
Adebiyi-Abiola stated that “It is pertinent to note that, if the woman’s identity was found in LASRRA’s database, it would have been easier to quickly reunite her with her family”.
According to her, the partnership LASRRA has with NIMC cannot be overemphasized. The benefit of the inter-agency collaboration is evident in the swift action of both Agencies in trying to establish the identity of the elderly woman to return her safely to her family, adding that “This incident demonstrates why it is essential for every elderly citizen to be included in the LASRRA database”.




