Northamptonshire police are appealing for information to help find the award-winning poet Gboyega Odubanjo, who has been missing since the early hours of Saturday morning.
Odubanjo, 27, was last seen at about 4am on 26 August. He was attending Shambala festival in the Kelmarsh area of Northamptonshire, where he was due to perform later that day.
According to police, Odubanjo is 5ft 6in with short black dreadlocks and a full-face beard. He wears glasses and was last seen wearing a beige or cream bucket hat, a red and white striped gilet with black clothing underneath, black trousers and dark-coloured shoes.
Originally from Dagenham, Odubanjo is a rising talent in the UK poetry scene. His pamphlet, Aunty Uncle Poems, was a winner of the Poetry Business New Poets prize in 2020. He was also the recipient of an Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors and a Michael Marks pamphlet award.
Odubanjo is an editor at Bad Betty Press and the poetry magazine Bath Magg, and his poem Oil Music was featured as a Guardian poem of the week in 2021.
His forthcoming collection, Adam, explores structural inequality when it comes to searching for missing Black people in the UK. The collection is inspired by the unsolved murder of “Adam”, an unidentified male child whose body was found in the River Thames in 2001.
The appeal for information has been shared widely on Twitter and Instagram, with poets including Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Raymond Antrobus and Tice Cin adding their voices.
Cin said: “My best friend, Gboyega Odubanjo, light of my life and acclaimed poet, highly anticipated novelist, the best son and brother. We need help bringing him home, nobody deserves to go missing in a society with all the resources to find our loved ones.
“Help us to find this brilliant kind man, the type of man who you can ring at 3am when your back is hurting and you can’t sleep. His future is so bright and we must rally together, over nature walkers, press, civilians and more to bring him back to where he is loved and safe.”
Antrobus, who last saw Odubanjo on Thursday 24 August, said that he was in “a good mood and excited for the festival”. He described Odubanjo’s disappearance as “unusual and upsetting”.
In a joint statement, Odubanjo’s family said: “We appeal to you today with heavy hearts and profound concern, to help us find our beloved son and brother Gboyega.
“Gboyega is a loving and caring son who means the world to our family. He is currently studying for his PhD in creative writing at University of Hertfordshire. He has a warm and infectious personality, a contagious smile, and a heart full of kindness.
“We believe that Gboyega’s disappearance is entirely out of character for him, and we are genuinely worried for his safety and wellbeing. We are reaching out to the community, friends, and all compassionate individuals who may have any information that could lead to his safe return. No piece of information is too small, and your help could be the key to bringing him back to us.
“Thank you for taking the time to read our appeal. We pray for Gboyega’s safe return and for the strength to endure this challenging time.”
Northamptonshire police has said that the force is pursuing “all lines of enquiry”. Odubanjo’s friends and family are in the process of organising a search party.
Anyone with information is asked to call Northamptonshire police on 101, quoting reference number MPD1/2619/23.
