Odinkalu: Abia escaped a quarter-century of ‘un-government’, must not return there

May 29, 2026

UMUAHIA, Nigeria — Renowned human rights scholar and lawyer, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, has declared that Abia State stands at a historic crossroads, warning that the state must never return to what he described as nearly 25 years of “un-government” that robbed citizens of dignity, hope and accountable leadership.

Speaking at the third anniversary lecture of Governor Alex Otti’s administration in Umuahia on Thursday, Odinkalu argued that the most significant achievement of the current government is not roads, infrastructure or urban renewal projects, but the restoration of human dignity and public trust in governance.

In a lecture titled “Governance as Dignity: Three Years of Impact and of Shaping the Future of Abia State and Beyond,” the former Chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission said Abia’s experience before 2023 went beyond mere bad governance.

Borrowing from the Spanish term desgobierno, which he translated as “un-government,” Odinkalu described the period as one marked by the criminalization of state institutions, impunity and the systematic erosion of public confidence.

“For nearly a quarter century, this State was Nigeria’s poster-child for the impossibility of credible government founded on incredible illegitimacy,” he said.

According to him, governance during that era became detached from the will of the people, creating conditions in which public resources were pillaged while accountability mechanisms were weakened or captured.

The professor said the consequences were visible in the collapse of infrastructure, declining public services, growing insecurity and widespread hopelessness among residents.

However, he argued that the state’s recent transformation demonstrates the power of legitimate leadership backed by public trust.

“Governor Alex Otti’s biggest achievements lie in restoring dignity and hope to a people who had given up on both, elevating the state’s ambitions and investing intentionally in the idea of government as a virtuous enterprise,” he said.

Odinkalu acknowledged the administration’s visible accomplishments, including extensive road construction, urban regeneration, improved fiscal management, investments in education, healthcare and energy infrastructure, but insisted that the deeper significance lies in rebuilding citizens’ confidence in government.

He cited improvements in mobility, power supply, healthcare delivery and education as evidence of a coherent strategy aimed at transforming Abia into a competitive enterprise economy and regional commercial hub.

The scholar disclosed that the administration had asphalted hundreds of roads across the state and was pursuing long-term projects designed to position Abia as a major trade and logistics centre in the South-East.

He also commended investments in public education, healthcare and social inclusion, describing them as essential foundations for sustainable development.

Drawing from Nigeria’s Constitution, Odinkalu argued that government exists primarily to protect and enhance the dignity of citizens.

He referenced constitutional provisions requiring government to safeguard welfare, maintain human dignity and ensure that governmental actions remain humane.

“Human dignity is more than an aspiration; it is a constitutional metric for measuring the performance of government,” he said.

Beyond celebrating the administration’s achievements, Odinkalu challenged Abians to protect the gains recorded so far, particularly as political activities ahead of the 2027 general elections gather momentum.

He warned against returning to a culture of transactional politics and urged citizens to evaluate political leadership based on performance rather than sentiment.

“The outcomes announced in elections have profound implications for the lives and fates of real people,” he said. “We confront a season that will test the will of the state in defending what it now has.”

Looking ahead, the professor identified several strategic opportunities for Abia, including developing a professional services economy, establishing a regional commercial dispute resolution hub, strengthening the knowledge economy through higher education and research, attracting diaspora investment, creating a Women’s Legacy Fund for women-led enterprises and deepening regional security cooperation.

He particularly urged the government to leverage the state’s growing network of universities and educational institutions to build a knowledge-driven economy capable of competing globally.

Odinkalu also called for stronger engagement with the diaspora community, noting that Abia and neighbouring Imo State account for a substantial share of Nigeria’s annual diaspora remittances.

As the state charts its future, he said the ultimate challenge is whether the current reforms will become a permanent foundation for development or merely a temporary interruption in a longer history of poor governance.

“For Abia State, there are two options,” he said. “To make this experience sustainable and indefinite into the future, or to record it as a minor interregnum in a continuum of habitual un-government.”

“The choice is clear.”

The soldier who found a baby on the battlefield and carried her for 40 miles

May 29, 2026

This is the story of the American Soldier Who Found an Abandoned Baby on the Italian Battlefield and Carried Her 40 Miles to Safety — Then Spent 60 Years Wondering If She Survived, Italy, 1944.

January 1944. Anzio, Italy

The Anzio beachhead was a particular kind of hell — a narrow strip of Italian coastline held by Allied forces under constant German bombardment, no room to advance, no room to retreat, just the grinding daily mathematics of holding ground under fire.
Corporal James Whitaker, 24, Georgia, was moving through a bombed farmhouse on a patrol assignment when he heard it.
Not crying — past crying.
The sound an infant makes when it has cried beyond what crying can accomplish and has gone to a place beyond it, a thin persistent sound like a mechanical thing running down.
He found her in the farmhouse cellar. An infant girl. Eight months old at the most. Alone in a wooden crate lined with a woman’s wool coat. Alive, barely, from cold and dehydration.
No one else in the farmhouse. No one else anywhere visible.
He picked her up.

The Problem
James Whitaker was on a combat patrol in an active battle zone carrying an infant who would die if he put her down and who he had no ability to help if he kept her.
He had no formula, no milk, no baby supplies of any kind.
He had his canteen, a chocolate bar, and forty miles between his position and the field hospital at the rear.
He started walking.

The Forty Miles
He carried her inside his field jacket, against his chest, where the body heat kept her warm.
He gave her water from his canteen, dripped slowly from his finger to her lips the way he had seen his mother water young animals — a memory that surfaced from childhood without warning and turned out to be exactly applicable.
He broke small pieces of chocolate and let her suck the sweetness from his finger.
He moved at night when he could, staying off roads, moving through terrain that was simultaneously trying to kill him from German positions and from Italian winter.
He talked to her.

Quietly, constantly, in the specific soft register humans use with infants regardless of whether the infant understands. He told her about Georgia. About his mother’s cooking. About the farm where he grew up. He told her it was going to be fine, which he was not certain was true but which he had decided to commit to regardless.
She was alive when he reached the field hospital at dawn on the second day.
A nurse took her from his arms.
He sat down on the ground outside the hospital tent and did not get up for an hour.

The Handoff
The field hospital logged the infant as a found civilian, turned her over to an Italian Red Cross representative, and that was the last official record that connected her to James Whitaker.
He asked about her before he went back to his unit. They told him she was stable, that she would be placed with a relief organization, that she would be taken care of.
He went back to his unit.
He went back to the war.

The Sixty Years
James Whitaker came home to Georgia in 1945. He married. He had three children. He farmed and then he worked in hardware and then he retired.
He thought about the baby for sixty years.
Not obsessively — he was a practical man, not given to obsession. But consistently. On certain mornings. On certain nights. A presence in the back of his mind, an open question he had never been able to close.

She would be in her sixties now, he would calculate. He did not know her name. He did not know if she had survived the war, the occupation, the chaos of postwar Italy. He did not know if she had a family, children, a life.
He knew only that he had carried her forty miles and handed her to a nurse and never found out what happened next.

In 2004, his granddaughter Sarah — seventeen years old, working on a school project about WWII — asked him if he had any war stories.
He told her one.
Sarah put it on the internet.

The Finding
Three months later, a woman in Bologna, Italy, contacted Sarah’s email address.
Her name was Maria Conti. She was sixty years old. She had been told, by the Italian family who had raised her, that she had been found as an infant during the Anzio campaign by an American soldier who carried her to safety.
She had been looking for that soldier for forty years.
James Whitaker was eighty-four years old when Sarah showed him the email.
He read it twice.
He looked up at his granddaughter.
“”She’s alive,”” he said.
“”She wants to talk to you,”” Sarah said.
They spoke by telephone first — Sarah translating between English and Italian. Then by letter. Then, in 2005, Maria Conti flew to Georgia.
She was sixty-one years old. She was a schoolteacher. She had three children and five grandchildren.

She walked into James Whitaker’s living room and he stood up — slowly, at eighty-five, he stood up — and they looked at each other.
Maria crossed the room. She took both his hands. She said something in Italian.
Sarah translated: “”She says she has wanted to say thank you her whole life. She says she is sorry it took sixty years.””
James Whitaker held her hands.
He said: “”Tell her sixty years is nothing. Tell her I just needed to know she made it.”

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/1NVwX7y88V/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Bring Back Our Children — Before Nigeria loses its soul

May 29, 2026

By Law & Society Magazine Editorial Board

Somewhere tonight in forests in northern and South-Western Nigeria, frightened children are likely trying to sleep on bare ground. Some may still be calling out for home in the darkness. Others may already have fallen into the numb silence fear often brings.

Back in Abuja and across the country’s political corridors, however, conversations are increasingly shifting toward something else entirely: the 2027 elections.

That contrast, between children in captivity and politics proceeding almost undisturbed, has become one of the most disturbing symbols of modern Nigeria.

As the country marked Children’s Day on May 27, public anger erupted online and across civil society over the continued abduction of schoolchildren and teachers in Oyo and Borno states. Using the hashtag #BringBackOurStudents, celebrities, activists and ordinary Nigerians accused political leaders of responding to national trauma with familiar statements but little visible urgency.

For many citizens, this year’s Children’s Day celebrations felt painfully hollow.

Three-year-old Sikiru Salami and 18-month-old Christiana Akanbi remain among dozens of children reportedly still held by abductors following attacks on schools in Oyo State. Other victims include toddlers barely old enough to understand the violence surrounding them.

The plight of the other schoolchildren abducted from schools in Mussa, Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State on May 15, 2026, the same day the Oyo school abductions occurred, can only be imagined.

That reality has shaken many Nigerians more deeply than official statements appear to acknowledge.

President Bola Tinubu eventually addressed the issue 13 days after the incident, in his Children’s Day message, assuring grieving families that the abducted children had “not been abandoned” and that security agencies had been directed to intensify rescue efforts.

“As a father and your President: you are not forgotten,” he said.

The problem for many Nigerians is not necessarily the words themselves. It is that they have heard similar words repeatedly over the years while insecurity continues to spread.

Since the 2014 abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls under former President Goodluck Jonathan, mass kidnappings have evolved from national shock events into recurring headlines. Entire communities across parts of northern and central Nigeria now live under the constant threat of abductions, raids and mass killings.

Schoolchildren, once considered untouchable, have increasingly become targets.

That is partly why comparisons to the #BringBackOurGirls movement resurfaced so quickly this week.

Former Education Minister Obiageli Ezekwesili, one of the leading voices behind the Chibok campaign, openly criticised what she described as performative leadership during Children’s Day commemorations.

“Do not dare stand in front of cameras,” she wrote in a widely shared statement, accusing political leaders of celebrating children while many remained trapped in captivity.

Her criticism resonated because public frustration appears to be extending beyond insecurity itself into something deeper: the perception that national suffering no longer interrupts political business.

Even symbolic moments now carry outsized meaning.

When President Tinubu recently visited Plateau State following deadly attacks around Jos, many Nigerians expected images of a leader walking through grieving communities and devastated villages. Instead, reports that the visit remained largely around the airport — with selected victims brought there to meet him — triggered criticism online and reinforced perceptions of emotional distance between political leadership and ordinary citizens.

Meanwhile, politicians across party lines continue holding meetings, negotiating alliances and quietly positioning for the next electoral cycle.

To many Nigerians, the timing feels jarring.

The contrast becomes even more painful when viewed through the eyes of affected families. Parents of abducted children are living through an emotional nightmare that is difficult to fully describe: waiting endlessly for information, fearing ransom videos, imagining what frightened children may be experiencing in remote forests.

Some of the abducted children are younger than five.

Others are teenagers taken from classrooms alongside teachers and relatives.

And beyond the immediate horror lies another concern experts and activists increasingly raise: trauma.

Nigeria’s insecurity crisis is often discussed in terms of military operations, casualty figures and political accountability. Far less attention is given to the long-term psychological impact on children repeatedly exposed to violence, displacement and fear.

What happens to a society where children grow up watching schools become targets and governments struggle to guarantee basic safety?

That question has become harder to ignore.

Many Nigerians also point to broader structural failures feeding instability across the country — including mass youth unemployment, widespread poverty, poor education systems and the growing number of vulnerable children surviving on the streets.

Across several northern cities, including Abuja, Almajiri children can still be seen roaming major roads carrying bowls and searching for food. To critics, the image reflects a deeper national crisis: millions of children growing up around neglect, inequality and hopelessness while political elites remain consumed by power struggles.

“A nation that cannot protect its children is not merely losing its future,” one activist wrote this week. “It is breeding tomorrow’s anger.”

That warning may sound dramatic, but many Nigerians increasingly believe the country is entering dangerous territory psychologically as well as politically.

After years of repeated attacks, public reactions themselves appear to be changing. There is still outrage, but also visible exhaustion. A sense that mass abductions, killings and displacement are slowly becoming normalised.

Perhaps that is the greatest danger of all. This is because once a society becomes emotionally accustomed to children disappearing into forests, something deeper than security has already started collapsing.

And that is why this moment feels bigger than politics.

Children’s Day is supposed to celebrate innocence, safety and possibility. Instead, this year’s observance forced Nigeria to confront a troubling national question:

What does it say about a country when toddlers remain in terrorist camps while political conversations move on almost as if nothing happened?

NCoS says ₦120m theft claim at Kuje prison is false, dismisses allegation

May 29, 2026

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has dismissed as false and misleading online reports alleging that an inmate at the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Kuje, Abuja, was robbed of personal valuables reportedly worth over ₦120 million during a routine search operation.

In a statement issued by the Service public relations officer, chief superintendent of Corrections, Jane Osuji, the NCoS described the allegation as inconsistent with established procedures governing custodial operations across the country.

The Service explained that what occurred at the facility was a routine security search conducted in line with Standard Operating Procedures aimed at maintaining order, discipline, and safety within the custodial centre.

According to the statement, all recovered prohibited items during the exercise were duly processed and documented, with no irregularities recorded. It stressed that inmates are not permitted to retain unauthorized valuables or large sums of money while in custody.

The NCoS further stated that upon admission into any custodial facility, all declared personal belongings of inmates are properly documented and kept in safe custody until lawful release. It noted that there is no official record indicating that items matching the alleged ₦120 million valuation were declared or kept in custody at Kuje Custodial Centre.

It added that the items referenced in the reports are classified as prohibited contraband within custodial facilities, and therefore cannot be lawfully retained by inmates.

The Service also disclosed that no complaint, formal or informal, regarding theft or missing valuables has been lodged by any inmate or individual connected to the centre through official channels.

Reaffirming the state of security within the facility, the NCoS said the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Kuje, remains calm, peaceful, and secure.

The service urged members of the public and media organisations to disregard sensational and unverified claims, and to always seek clarification through appropriate official channels before publication.

It reaffirmed its commitment to professionalism, transparency, and ongoing reforms aimed at strengthening security and accountability across custodial centres nationwide.

“The Service wishes to categorically state that the allegation is false, misleading, and inconsistent with the operational realities and established procedures governing custodial facilities in the country.

“For the avoidance of doubt, what took place at the Custodial Centre in Kuje, was a routine security search carried out within the facility and all recovered prohibited items were dully processed and documented. The exercise was conducted professionally and in line with extant Standard Operating Procedures aimed at maintaining security, order, discipline, and the integrity of custodial operations,” the statement concluded.

Inside The Gates of Impunity: Why a remand inmate’s stolen watch matters to every Nigerian

May 29, 2026

By Kachi Okezie, Esq.

If a high-profile man on remand cannot keep his wedding ring safe in Kuje prison, then no citizen’s rights are safe anywhere.

There is a special kind of dread that grips a society when the very institutions created to secure life and liberty become the ones that violate them most brazenly. The recent report out of Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre, alleging that former Skye Bank Chairman Tunde Ayeni was robbed of a ₦120 million watch and wedding ring, would be alarming enough if it were the work of external bandits scaling fences under cover of darkness.

It becomes something far more corrosive when, as alleged, the raiders were not hoodlums but security personnel whose identities remain unknown. That single detail shifts the conversation from one about failed fences and poor surveillance to something more fundamental: abuse of authority. When the hand that holds the key is the same hand that reaches into your pocket, we are no longer talking about insecurity. We are talking about the state turning on its own citizens.

Ayeni is on remand. That legal status matters more than most people realise. Under Section 36(5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, every person charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in Al-Mustapha v. State (2013) LPELR-20372(SC), holding that the presumption is absolute and applies at all stages including pre-trial detention.

A remand inmate is not a convict. He stands before the law as Ayeni does, entitled to every constitutional right that has not been expressly taken away by due process. Section 35(1)(c) of the Constitution permits detention only upon reasonable suspicion and for the purpose of bringing him before a court, while Section 34(1)(a) guarantees that the dignity of his person is inviolable. The Supreme Court in Uzoukwu v. Ezeonu II (1991) 6 NWLR Pt. 200 p.708 made clear that fundamental rights do not stop at the prison gate.

Property cannot be seized except by a court order following a lawful process, as Section 36(12) of the Constitution demands, and Section 12(8) of the Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019 expressly provides that an inmate shall retain all rights not lawfully taken away by the sentence of a court or by the fact of detention.

Yet inside a facility that should be the most controlled environment in the country, a man awaiting trial is said to have been relieved of personal effects of immense value, with no judge, no order, no record, only the implied threat of men in uniform. If this is true, then it is not just a robbery. It is a desecration of the very idea of justice itself, a direct assault on the presumption of innocence that the Court of Appeal in Duru v. FRN (2017) LPELR-43289(CA) warned must not be violated by treating an accused as guilty before judgment.

For years Nigerians have watched the slow erosion of our public institutions with a mixture of anger and resignation. Courts hearings are delayed, hospitals under-equipped, roads abandoned, and now even prisons, the last line of the state’s claim to order, have become spaces where rights are negotiable.

Kuje itself was attacked by terrorists in 2022 and hundreds escaped. The state promised reforms, better intelligence, stronger perimeters. To now hear, as alleged, that danger may come not from outside the walls but from within the uniform is to confront a deeper rot. It suggests that the problem is not only what we lack in terms of money or manpower, but what we have lost in terms of discipline, oversight, and fear of consequences. When men who wear the insignia of the state can enter a custodial centre and allegedly strip an inmate of his possessions without fear that anyone will hold them to account, it means impunity has moved from the streets into the very heart of the correctional system.

Section 13 of the Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019 requires that awaiting-trial persons be kept separate from convicted persons and treated as innocent. The Court in Nemi v. State (1994) 7 NWLR Pt. 355 p.201 held that remand inmates must not be subjected to punitive treatment reserved for convicts. When that statutory duty is ignored and the remand cell becomes a hunting ground, the law is not merely broken; it is ridiculed.

The social contract is simple in theory and demanding in practice. Citizens surrender certain freedoms to the state with the expectation that the state will protect their lives, their property, and their dignity. Nowhere is that bargain starker than in prison. An inmate cannot lock his door, cannot hire private guards, cannot run to the police if the police are the threat. The moment the state takes liberty away, it assumes total responsibility for safety. The Supreme Court in Fawehinmi v. IGP (2000) LPELR-1279(SC) held that detention, including remand, must be lawful and the detainee retains all constitutional rights except those necessarily restricted by detention itself. To fail at that point is to breach the contract at its most basic clause. If a remand prisoner cannot trust that his wedding ring will be safe inside Kuje, then what citizen can trust that his home will be safe in Abuja, his shop safe in Kano, his farm safe in Benue? The corrosion begins in the cell but it does not end there. It spreads outward, convincing people that the state is not a protector but another predator to be managed.

There are consequences that flow from this drift if we do not arrest it quickly. The first is the death of public trust in the judiciary and the correctional system. Why should any Nigerian believe in the rule of law if the place where the law is supposed to be enforced becomes a marketplace for extortion? The second is the hardening of criminality. Prisons are meant to correct, to rehabilitate, to return people to society better than they entered. A facility where inmates must defend their watches and wedding rings from those meant to guard them will not produce reformed citizens. It will produce embittered citizens who have learned that survival means distrusting every institution.

The third consequence is international. Nigeria has domesticated the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights through the Ratification and Enforcement Act, and Article 7(b) of that Charter guarantees the presumption of innocence. In Abacha v. Fawehinmi (2000) 6 NWLR Pt. 660 p.228 the Supreme Court held that the Charter is part of Nigerian law and enforceable. Repeated violations inside our custodial centres invite scrutiny, lawsuits, and diplomatic embarrassment at a time when we are trying to attract investment and partnership. Investors do not pour money into countries where the state cannot even guarantee the safety of those in its custody.

What makes this episode particularly painful is that Ayeni is not a faceless statistic. He is a high-profile figure whose case has been in the public eye. If someone with resources, access to lawyers, and public attention can allegedly be robbed inside Kuje by security personnel, then the ordinary awaiting-trial trader, student, or driver who has no voice and no connections is completely vulnerable. That is the true measure of institutional failure. When the system cannot protect the visible, it has certainly abandoned the invisible. Remand under Section 296 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 is administrative, not punitive, as the Court in Odogu v. A.G. Federation (1996) 6 NWLR Pt. 453 p.180 emphasised. Yet the experience alleged turns administration into punishment and custody into extortion.

So where is the state’s responsibility? It lies squarely at the door of those who control the Nigerian Correctional Service, the Ministry of Interior, and ultimately the presidency which swore to uphold the Constitution. Responsibility means more than issuing press statements. It means an immediate, independent, and transparent investigation into the allegations, with the identities of all personnel who accessed Ayeni’s cell in the relevant period made public. It means sanctioning and prosecuting any officer found culpable, not redeploying them quietly to another command, because the Evidence Act 2011 places the burden of proof on the state and the state must now prove that it can police its own. It means publishing a clear policy on inmate property, with receipts, inventories, and accountability, so that no court order is needed to remind officials that a man’s watch is not state property. It means decongesting prisons by speeding up trials for the majority of inmates who are awaiting trial, because overcrowding breeds chaos and chaos invites abuse. And it means funding and training staff properly, paying them on time, rotating them frequently, and subjecting them to real oversight, because a poorly paid, unsupervised officer with absolute power over a captive population will almost always become the problem he was hired to solve.

Nigerians are tired of excuses. We have heard about bad eggs and isolated incidents for too long while the pattern repeats. The Kuje allegation, if proven, is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of a nasty culture. It tells us that the line between custodian and criminal is thinning, and that the authority we grant the state is being weaponised against the very people it should shield. That is an affront to civil rights and to justice in the deepest sense of those words. Justice is not only about courts handing down sentences. It is about the daily, unglamorous work of ensuring that every person, even the accused, even the unpopular, is treated as a human being under the protection of law, as Section 36(5) and the long line of authorities from Woolmington to Al-Mustapha demand. We must demand better, not just for Tunde Ayeni, but for the principle he represents in this moment. A nation that cannot keep its correctional facilities safe cannot claim to be secure. A government that cannot control its own security personnel cannot claim to have a monopoly on force. And a society that shrugs at the robbery of a remand inmate has already begun to accept that no one’s rights are safe. The time to arrest this drift is now, before the next story is not about a stolen watch, but about a stolen life, and before Nigerians conclude, with bitter accuracy, that the greatest threat to their liberty comes not from outside the gates, but from the officers standing inside them.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

Dame Patience Jonathan!

May 29, 2026

By Ayo Lijadu

There was once a First Lady of Nigeria.

A true Mother of the Nation who showed empathy; who rallied and gathered grieving mothers whose children were snatched from under them; who grieved and shed tears with them; who felt their pain.

But we mocked, laughed at, and ridiculed her.

Now that our children have been snatched from under us again and the nation is in dire need of a mother figure in the form of a First Lady; the Mother of the Nation; one to assure us that our pains are her pains; our tears her tears; our grief her grief; our sleepless nights hers as well; that she is on standby to rally around us and put pressure on her husband, the President, to do the urgent needful, – we cannot find one.

The one there now is as silent as night, and missing in action – two weeks since our children have been whisked away into the forests!

No word from her publicly on her concern for, and on the fate of our kidnapped children.

Two weeks after!

There was once a Dame Patience Jonathan – a true Mother of the Nation.

AFBA President Eddy Mark mourns again as brother, Dr. Emmanuel Mark, dies weeks after family losses

May 29, 2026

The African legal and professional community is mourning the death of Dr. Emmanuel Obumneme Mark — a celebrated lawyer, chartered estate surveyor, valuer and internationally recognized right-of-way consultant — whose passing has plunged the Mark family into yet another painful chapter of grief.

Dr. Mark, who is the 1st Vice President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), died on Monday, May 25, 2026, according to a statement released by the African Bar Association (AFBA), where his elder brother, High Chief Ibrahim Edmund “Eddy” Mark, serves as President.

He was 53 years old.

His death comes amid what close associates describe as one of the most emotionally devastating periods in the history of the prominent Rivers State family.

Only months earlier, the family buried their matriarch, Mrs. Priscilla Queen Nwanediye Mark, who died peacefully in November 2025 at the age of 95 and was laid to rest in January 2026 during an elaborate funeral ceremony attended by dignitaries from across Nigeria’s legal, political and traditional institutions.

Then tragedy struck again on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026, with the passing of the family’s eldest son, Chief Maxwell Mark.

Now, barely weeks later, the family is grieving the loss of another towering figure — Dr. Emmanuel Mark — a man widely respected across the legal, real estate and professional regulatory sectors for what colleagues called “an unblemished record of selfless service.”

In a solemn tribute, the African Bar Association described the late professional as a distinguished member whose contributions transcended law and real estate practice.

“Our hearts go out to our President of the African Bar Association and to the entire Mark family during this difficult time,” the association said. “We pray that Dr. Mark’s soul rests peacefully with the Lord, and that God grants the President, his family and loved ones the strength and fortitude to bear this irreplaceable loss.”

Dr. Emmanuel Mark built a career that combined legal expertise with global recognition in estate surveying, valuation and environmental management.

A Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS), London, he was also the first African and first Nigerian member of the International Right of Way Association’s Chapter 84 to attain the elite Senior Right of Way Professional (SRWA) designation — one of the profession’s highest honours.

His rise in the profession mirrored an extraordinary academic journey.

He earned a Second-Class Upper degree in Estate Management before obtaining an M.Phil. and later a Ph.D. in Environmental Management. Refusing to stop there, he pursued an LL. B degree, further cementing his multidisciplinary reputation.

Dr. Mark also attended executive real estate and urban development programs at Harvard Business School and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, experiences that helped shape his influence in Nigeria’s real estate and infrastructure sectors.

Within the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), he occupied numerous strategic positions, including National Publicity Secretary, member of the National Council, Chairman of the Corporate Affairs Committee and member of the Professional Practice Committee.

He was also remembered for elevating Nigeria’s profile on the international stage.

As President of International Right of Way Association (IRWA) Chapter 84 Nigeria, he led the chapter to a historic milestone in 2019 when it became the first chapter outside the United States and Canada to win the prestigious Gene L. Land Award for the highest membership growth globally.

Beyond boardrooms and professional accolades, Dr. Mark was deeply involved in humanitarian and community service initiatives through Rotary International. He served as Past President of the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt and later as Assistant Governor.

Friends and associates described him as intellectually rigorous, deeply spiritual and fiercely committed to mentorship and institutional development.

He is survived by his wife, Princess Goody Emmanuel Mark, children and an extended family now grappling with a succession of heartbreaking losses.

For many observers, the repeated tragedies surrounding the Mark family have transformed what was once a season of celebration and legacy into one marked by mourning, resilience and reflection.

Falz, Labour Activists blast Tinubu over abducted schoolchildren, demand nationwide protests

May 28, 2026

Civil society activists and labour leaders have launched a blistering attack on President Bola Tinubu’s administration over the abduction of dozens of schoolchildren and teachers in Oyo and Borno states, accusing the government of indifference and demanding nationwide protests.

In a joint statement issued to mark Children’s Day, Nigerian rapper and activist Falz, alongside labour and civil society leaders, questioned the government’s response to a growing wave of insecurity affecting schools and rural communities.

The coalition said 39 schoolchildren and seven teachers were abducted in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State after gunmen attacked Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; Community Grammar School, Esinele; and L.A. Primary School, Ahoro-Esinele.

The statement also revealed that one of the abducted teachers, identified as Mr. Oyedokun Olugbade, was beheaded days after the kidnapping.

The activists further referenced another attack in Borno State, where suspected Boko Haram insurgents allegedly abducted 42 pupils during an assault on Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba Local Government Area on May 15, 2026.

“It is only right that on the occasion of Children’s Day, we ask President Bola Ahmed Tinubu: Where are the abducted children of Ahoro Esinle of Oyo State and Askira-Uba LGA of Borno State?” the statement read.

The coalition accused both federal and state governments of carrying on “business as usual” while dozens of children and teachers remain in captivity.

“Sadly, since the tragic abduction, Nigeria’s government, both at the Federal and State levels, has mostly carried on with business as usual, occasionally offering platitudinous statements of assurance while doing absolutely nothing to rescue our beloved children,” the statement said.

The signatories argued that Nigerian security agencies possess the surveillance and intelligence capabilities needed to track the abductors but have failed to deploy them effectively.

“The question, therefore, is: why is this not being deployed to rescue our children?” the statement continued.

The group also drew comparisons with the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls abduction under former President Goodluck Jonathan, accusing the Tinubu administration of repeating what it described as years of official complacency and inertia.

“Just like former President Jonathan in 2014 when the Chibok girls were abducted, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is as clueless about what to do to curb the rampaging insecurity afflicting Nigeria,” the coalition stated.

The activists further criticised political leaders for prioritising party activities and elections while insecurity worsens across the country.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his ministers, and National Assembly members had no problem cavorting at their recent party primaries even as over 81 children languish in a terrorist den,” the statement added.

The coalition warned that any government unable to guarantee citizens’ safety risks losing its moral legitimacy.

“A government unable to guarantee this is a failed government. Such a government has no moral authority to ask citizens to vote it at the next election,” the statement said.

The statement concluded with a call for peaceful nationwide protests, urging labour unions, youth groups and civil society organisations to mobilise against insecurity and pressure the government to secure the release of all abducted Nigerians.

Among the signatories were Falz; Hassan Taiwo Soweto of the #EndBadGovernance Movement; Mike Igaga of the Moses Oisakede Leadership Foundation; Yusha’u Sani Yankuzo of the Nigeria Patriotic Front Movement; and Rufus Olusesan of the Precision, Electrical and Related Equipment Senior Staff Association.

Separately, Socialist Labour also called on organised labour, particularly the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), to begin sustained peaceful protests over the kidnappings and the killing of mathematics teacher Michael Oyedokun.

In a statement signed by its General Secretary, Comrade Biodun Olamosu, the group condemned what it described as the “criminal neglect” of workers, students and poor Nigerians by the country’s political elite.

“It is unacceptable that teachers, farmers, workers, students, and communities now live daily in fear while government officials continue to recycle empty promises and propaganda,” Socialist Labour said.

The organisation argued that repeated school abductions and attacks on workers expose deep failures in Nigeria’s security architecture despite repeated government assurances.

The group also urged labour unions to move beyond issuing statements and develop concrete programmes to guarantee safety in schools and workplaces.

“The blood of workers must not continue to water the ground while politicians live comfortably under state protection,” the statement added.

Socialist Labour pledged to participate in any peaceful nationwide action organised by labour unions and civil society groups to demand improved security and the release of abducted victims.

The growing pressure on the Nigeria Union of Teachers also raises broader questions about organised labour’s willingness to directly confront the government over escalating insecurity.

Critics argue that if teachers’ unions do not aggressively mobilise after the abduction and killing of their members, attacks on schools could become increasingly normalised, leaving both educators and students even more vulnerable.

Ex-Skye Bank Chairman Tunde Ayeni ‘robbed’ of N120m watch, wedding ring in Kuje prison raid

May 28, 2026

Former Skye Bank Plc Chairman Tunde Ayeni was allegedly stripped of a wedding ring and a luxury wristwatch valued at more than N120 million during a controversial raid at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja, according to multiple sources familiar with the incident.

Sources inside the facility told SaharaReporters that the operation was led by senior officials of the Nigerian Correctional Service, including the Deputy Controller-General (DCG) of Operations and officers overseeing the custodial centre.

The sources also alleged that suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, who is currently detained at the facility, lost approximately N2 million during the same operation.

According to insiders, armed operatives accompanied by Department of State Services (DSS) dogs stormed the prison yard wearing bulletproof vests, triggering panic among inmates.

“One of the former chairmen of Skye Bank in Kuje prison was searched and robbed of his wedding ring and wristwatch worth over N120 million by officers in charge of Kuje prison,” one source told SaharaReporters.

“Abba Kyari was also robbed of about N2 million by the same officers. They came into the yard with DSS dogs and bulletproof vests during the operation,” the source added.

The incident has reportedly heightened tensions within the correctional facility, with some inmates accusing officials of intimidation and abuse of power.

Another source familiar with the matter said Ayeni was considering filing a formal petition against the officers allegedly involved.

“The bank chairman wants to petition them as I speak to you,” the source said.

The operation was reportedly carried out under the guise of a routine search within the custodial centre. But insiders alleged that cash and valuables belonging to several high-profile detainees were seized without proper documentation or accountability.

Ayeni, a businessman and former chairman of the defunct Skye Bank Plc, is currently facing trial over alleged fraud amounting to N15.7 billion. He was recently granted bail by an Abuja High Court in the sum of N200 million under stringent conditions, including sureties who must be federal civil servants and a N15 billion bank guarantee.

Kyari, the suspended former head of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), is also standing trial over allegations linked to drug trafficking and other offences.

The Kuje Correctional Centre has repeatedly drawn national attention over security lapses and controversies involving high-profile detainees, including previous jailbreaks, allegations of preferential treatment, and claims of abuse by prison officials.