Telve years after the mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok by Boko Haram, survivors, scholars, and advocates say Nigeria—and the world—are still far from delivering justice.

At a high-level commemorative event titled “12 Years After: Memory, Justice and the Gendered Costs of Insurgency,” speakers issued a stark warning: the violence that shocked the globe in 2014 has not ended—it has evolved, deepened, and in many ways, been normalized.

Held at the Brooklyn College Library Auditorium on April 14, 2026, the panel brought together leading voices including Nanre Nafziger, Titilope Ajayi, and Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome to interrogate what accountability looks like more than a decade after one of Nigeria’s most defining tragedies.

The Gendered Toll of Terror

Panelists argued that the insurgency unleashed by Boko Haram created a uniquely gendered crisis—one that continues to reverberate across communities in northern Nigeria.

Women and girls, they said, have borne the brunt of the violence: from abductions and forced marriages to sexual violence, social stigma, and the collapse of educational and economic futures.

“These are not isolated harms,” one speaker noted. “They are layered, systemic, and ongoing.”

The discussion framed the Chibok abduction not as a closed chapter, but as a symbol of a broader pattern of insecurity that continues to threaten women’s lives and agency across the region.

Justice Still Out of Reach

A central question dominated the conversation: what does justice look like 12 years later?

For some, it means transparency and accountability—clear answers from authorities and consequences for perpetrators. For others, justice must go further, encompassing long-term rehabilitation for survivors, economic reintegration, and structural reforms to address the root causes of insurgency.

The lack of a unified response, panelists warned, reflects deeper governance challenges—and risks entrenching a cycle of impunity.

Fading Attention, Persistent Pain

Despite the global outrage that followed the Chibok kidnappings, speakers expressed concern that international attention has waned, even as violence persists.

The act of remembrance, they argued, is itself a form of resistance.

“Memory is political,” one panelist said. “Forgetting enables repetition.”

The event underscored the urgency of sustained advocacy—not only to honor the victims but to prevent future atrocities.

Stories That Refuse to Be Silenced

The commemoration concluded with a screening of Mothers of Chibok, a documentary by Joel Kachi Benson. The film follows four mothers of the abducted girls over the course of a farming season, offering an intimate portrait of grief, resilience, and unrelenting hope.

As the credits rolled, one message lingered: twelve years on, the story of Chibok is not over.

It is still being written—in the lives of survivors, in the demands of families, and in the unanswered questions that continue to haunt a nation.

By Kachi Okezie, Esq.

For decades, the Nigerian discourse has been a merry-go-round of finger-pointing. We blame the “ghost of Lord Lugard” for an uncomfortable 1914 marriage, the 1999 Constitution for its structural flaws, and a recycling bin of leaders for their lack of vision. Yet, as the years roll by and the same patterns repeat regardless of the regime or the law, a more uncomfortable truth emerges: Nigeria’s fundamental problem is not its systems, but the collective psyche and character of Nigerians themselves. If a machine fails to work regardless of who sits at the controls or which manual is used, one must eventually inspect the internal components. In the machinery of statehood, the citizens are the components.

This tragic reality is most evident in the way Nigerians cling to colonial history as a permanent disability check. We speak of 1914 as an insurmountable curse, yet a glance across the global landscape reveals a different story. Nations such as Singapore, India, and Vietnam endured the same, if not more brutal, colonial extractions. These nations transitioned from being colonial subjects to purposeful citizens, forging a national identity based on productivity and merit. In contrast, the average Nigerian has remained a “subject” in spirit, viewing the state as an alien entity to be looted rather than a commonwealth to be built. The problem is not that we were colonized; it is that we have refused to mentally decolonize and accept the burden of self-actualization.

Our obsession with “certifications” further masks a deep-seated lack of political education and human development. Nigeria boasts one of the most degreed populations in Africa, yet there is a cavernous void where civic responsibility should reside. We have millions of “highly schooled” individuals who use their intellect to navigate corruption more efficiently rather than dismantle it. True education manifests as a commitment to the rule of law, yet in Nigeria, the degree is often just a tool for social climbing. This intellectual disconnect explains why, despite having the mental capacity to build a superpower, we remain stuck in a loop of dysfunction. We are “certificated” but poorly educated in the basic tenets of civilization.

The endless debate over the 1999 Constitution is another masterful exercise in self-delusion. Many Nigerians decry the document as the source of all evil, forgetting that no constitution is a living being; it is always only a tool. The success of any governing document is a direct reflection of the quality and level of individual development of its operators. One only needs to look at the United Kingdom to see the ultimate rebuttal of our legalistic excuses. The UK thrives without a single written constitution, governed instead by an unbendable collective will to do what is agreed to be right.

In Britain, a public official resigns out of shame for a minor breach; in Nigeria, we snatch ballot boxes and then hire senior advocates to prove why the law shouldn’t apply to us. If the operators are committed to subverting the rules, no amount of constitutional “perfection” can save the state. Even the nostalgic yearning for the 1963 Republican Constitution ignores the fact that it presaged a civil war within only three years of its existence. It is not the document that failed; it was the people. And it always is.

Perhaps the most pervasive myth of all is that “leadership” is the sole culprit of our stagnation. We speak of leaders as if they were an invading force from a distant galaxy, but they are, in fact, the distilled essence of our own society. A politician who steals from the public treasury is simply the average Nigerian who has been given a bigger opportunity. The same citizen who bypasses a queue, cheats on a tax return, or bribes a policeman is the same individual who eventually ascends to the governor’s mansion. We have cultivated a culture where “sharpness” is defined by how well one can circumvent the law, and then we express shock when our leaders prove to be the sharpest of all.

If the leadership were truly the only problem, the solution would have been found long ago. History shows that when a people truly reach their limit, they reclaim their destiny. We have seen it in Tunisia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Senegal. In those nations, the masses moved as a collective force to demand accountability. In Nigeria, however, the masses are often the first line of defence for the corrupt, in true Stockholm Syndrome form. We allow ethnic and religious shielding to blunt the sword of justice. When a leader is called to account, his “kinsmen” rise up not to condemn his theft, but to defend “their son.” This indicates that the problem is not a lack of power in the hands of the people, but a lack of will and a fractured sense of ethics and morality among the people themselves.

Ultimately, Nigeria cannot be “fixed” by a new law, a new map, or a new set of leaders alone. It requires a fundamental revolution of the Nigerian psyche. We must move beyond being a collection of warring tribes and “certificated” opportunists to becoming a citizenry that understands that the common good is the only path to individual prosperity.

Until the average Nigerian decides that integrity is more valuable than a bribe and that the country is worth more than the tribe, we will continue to rotate on this merry-go-round of failure and cataclysm. The crisis is not in our stars, our history, or our laws; it is in ourselves.

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

They were once hailed as titans—revered, feared, and cloaked in the silk of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). But today, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN, stand brutally unmasked: not as champions of justice, but as frauds who have shamelessly dragged both legal practice and legal teaching through the gutter.

This is no minor scandal. It is a national disgrace—a raw, festering wound that exposes the rotten core of a profession already drowning in public contempt. In a nation gasping for credible institutions, these two Senior Advocates have proven themselves utterly unprincipled, ethically bankrupt, and devoid of any shred of integrity. They are not victims of persecution. They are architects of their own infamy. And their spectacular fall should serve as a searing indictment of everything wrong with Nigeria’s Bar and academia.

For decades, Chief Mike Ozekhome paraded as a fearless human rights crusader—a constitutional oracle who lectured Nigerians on justice while wrapped in silk and self-righteousness. Today, the mask is off. He stands revealed as a common document forger, accused by the Federal Government of brazen criminality in a sleazy London property grab.

The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Attorney-General of the Federation have slammed him with criminal charges—multiple counts of forgery, making false documents, and the dishonest use of a forged Nigerian international passport. Ozekhome is accused of knowingly peddling a fake passport in the name of “Shani Tali” to lay claim to a prime London property at 79 Randall Avenue before a UK tribunal. Even after one set of charges was withdrawn, fresh 12-count charges landed like a thunderclap—underscoring the gravity of the allegations.

Let no one call this a technicality. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria—an officer of the court sworn to uphold truth—allegedly manufactured and deployed forged identity documents for personal gain. In any serious jurisdiction, such conduct would trigger instant disbarment and public humiliation. Yet in Nigeria, the Nigerian Bar Association and the Body of Senior Advocates remain largely mute, as if ethical rot at the top is simply business as usual.

Ozekhome’s hypocrisy is nauseating. The same man who thundered against corruption and impunity now allegedly wallows in the very filth he condemned. His actions do not merely tarnish his reputation—they cheapen the SAN rank, erode public faith in the entire legal profession, and teach impressionable young lawyers that if a celebrated senior can allegedly forge passports for property, then ethics are for fools. Legal practice in Nigeria was already viewed with deep cynicism; Ozekhome has poured acid on the wound. He has turned the noble gown into a costume for deceit.

If Ozekhome has soiled legal practice, Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN has inflicted an even deeper, more insidious wound—on legal education and national institutions. Once a law professor and Dean at the University of Jos, Amupitan was entrusted with shaping the moral and intellectual character of future lawyers. Instead, he stands accused of presiding over academic fraud of the worst kind.

Former Minister Solomon Dalung—who knew Amupitan as both student and colleague—has publicly eviscerated him, declaring without mercy: “The Amupitan I know has no integrity.” Dalung alleges that during Amupitan’s tenure as Dean (2009–2010), 16 deserving students had their hard-earned 2:1 results “traded off,” while politically connected or absentee students—including senior security officers—were allegedly handed the same honours on a silver platter. Dalung claims he sacrificed his own master’s pursuit just to battle this injustice.

This is not petty gossip. A law professor allegedly manipulating grades turns the faculty into a marketplace of favours, where merit dies and connections reign. What poisonous lesson does this impart to students? That integrity is optional. That justice is negotiable. That the law classroom itself is a theatre of deceit. Legal teaching is meant to forge principled advocates; Amupitan stands accused of forging results instead.

Then came the final insult. His elevation to Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has only magnified the catastrophe. Dogged by questions over his neutrality, Amupitan faces repeated accusations of bias, selective enforcement of court orders, and contempt proceedings. Opposition parties, including the African Democratic Congress, have demanded his resignation, citing partisan interference. A law professor and SAN who allegedly cannot uphold basic judicial respect while overseeing national elections is not a guardian of democracy—he is a liability to it.

The spectacle is grotesque: a man accused of academic manipulation now sits atop the body charged with ensuring credible polls. If the teacher lacks integrity, why should anyone trust the umpire?

The near-simultaneous exposure of Ozekhome and Amupitan is no accident. It is a mirror held up to the moral decay eating Nigeria’s legal institutions alive. The SAN rank—once a badge of excellence and probity—now risks becoming a punchline. When senior figures can allegedly forge documents or rig academic results with little consequence, the message to the younger generation is toxic: prestige trumps principle. Power excuses everything.

The Nigerian Bar Association, the Council of Legal Education, and the Body of Senior Advocates owe the nation urgent, decisive action—disciplinary probes, potential revocation of SAN status, and genuine reform. Silence in the face of such scandals is not prudence. It is complicity.

Ozekhome and Amupitan have not simply embarrassed themselves. They have contemptuously brought both legal practice and legal teaching into utter disrepute at a moment when Nigeria can least afford it. Their alleged conduct mocks every upright judge, honest practitioner, and dedicated lecturer still fighting to uphold standards in obscurity.

The legal community must purge these disgraced elements or admit that its vaunted role as guardian of justice is nothing more than a self-serving lie. Until real accountability is delivered—through swift sanctions and systemic cleansing—these two will remain damning monuments to a profession that has lost its soul.

H. Y. Poloma
[email protected].
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The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.