An inmate of the Potiskum Correctional Centre in Yobe State, Blessing Sunday—who was allegedly impregnated by a correctional officer, Sani Saleh-Bodejo—has delivered a baby boy.

A source confirmed that the inmate recently gave birth at the Potiskum Specialist Hospital, adding that both mother and child are in stable condition.

The case first came to light in November 2025 when Saleh-Bodejo, an Assistant Superintendent of the Nigerian Correctional Service and yardmaster of the facility, had sexually assaulted and impregnated the inmate with the alleged support of some female staff.

Sources had claimed that the officer gained unauthorized access to the female inmates’ section late at night.

He was also accused of sexually assaulting another convicted inmate, identified as Salma.

Following public outcry, the Nigerian Correctional Service confirmed the allegations and suspended Mr Saleh-Bodejo along with other officers connected to the case.

In a statement issued in December, the service’s spokesperson, J. N. Osuji, described their actions as “unprofessional conduct with inmates,” noting that queries and charge sheets had been issued to additional personnel to determine the extent of their involvement.

The suspension was approved by the Chairman of the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board and Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, after reviewing a preliminary investigation report.

The statement stressed the service’s zero-tolerance stance on misconduct and inappropriate relationships between staff and inmates, warning that any officer found culpable would face disciplinary and possibly legal action.

Credit: The Conclave except headline.

The Nigerian Bar Association @NigBarAssoc has closely monitored recent political and legal developments as the nation gradually approaches the 2027 General Elections. These developments, particularly those arising from the interpretation and potential application of provisions of the Electoral Act 2026, raise serious constitutional, democratic, and rule-of-law concerns that require immediate intervention.

We particularly deprecate the disturbing involvement by lawyers and courts in the internal affairs of political parties despite the clear provisions of the Electoral Act, 2026, which stipulates in Section 83 of the Act that “No court in Nigeria shall entertain jurisdiction over any suit or matter pertaining to the internal affairs of a political party.”

Not only are courts denied jurisdiction to entertain any matter pertaining to the internal affairs of a political party, but they are also precluded from granting any interim or interlocutory injunction even where any action has been brought in violation of the Act. The section further provides that “Where such an action is brought in negation of this provision, no interim or interlocutory injunction shall be entertained by the Court, but the Court shall suspend its ruling and deliver it at the stage of final judgment and shall give accelerated hearing to the matter”.

What we now see are situations where actions are not only instituted in Courts by lawyers in clear violation of the Act, but Courts purportedly grant interim and/or interlocutory injunctions in clear contempt of statutory provisions of the law. This does not augur well for our democracy. Democracy will not thrive in a situation where lawyers and courts take actions and decisions that not only negate our laws but also do violence to them.

This emerging trend of subverting the clear letters of the Electoral Act and dragging courts into the internal affairs of political parties through disingenuous litigation, forum shopping, and malafide applications designed to secure undemocratic political advantage, bodes no good for our democracy. Such practices, if not immediately curbed, would directly contradict the clear intendment of the Electoral Act and risk transforming the judicial processes into avenues for political score-settling or electoral manipulation.

We must reiterate that these provisions were clearly designed to curb abuse of court processes and discourage forum shopping in political disputes. This is therefore why the NBA is concerned that the abuse, misapplication, or selective deployment of these provisions may create opportunities for manipulation capable of undermining democratic competition and shrinking the political space.

Members of the Bar are reminded that they are Ministers in the Temple of Justice and not political agents seeking judicial endorsement of partisan objectives. The filing of actions intended to draw courts into internal political party disputes, particularly where jurisdiction is expressly excluded, constitutes an abuse of court process and a violation of professional responsibility.

The NBA will take firm steps to deter such conduct. Lawyers who deliberately file actions aimed at procuring judicial interference in intra-party affairs, or who seek ex parte or interlocutory orders in clear violation of statutory provisions, risk facing disciplinary proceedings. We will not hesitate to present petitions before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) against any Legal Practitioner found to be engaging in such conduct. This will be pursued decisively to serve as a deterrent and to preserve the sanctity of the judicial process.

The Nigerian judiciary must stay vigilant and resist being drawn into political theatrics. Courts should firmly decline invitations, no matter how artfully crafted, to intervene in matters the law explicitly bars them from.
When statutes limit judicial meddling in party affairs, judges must show restraint, adhere to the law, and focus on cases properly before them.

We call on the National Judicial Council to make regulations that will sanction any judge who knowingly assumes jurisdiction in matters clearly barred by law, grants orders in respect of intra-party disputes in violation of statutory provisions, or lends the authority of the court to partisan political maneuvering. The NBA will not shy away from drawing the NJC’s attention to the actions of any judicial officer found to have acted in a manner inconsistent with the judicial oath, constitutional responsibilities, and the preservation of public confidence in the courts. The NBA will not hesitate to activate its constitutional responsibility to protect the integrity of the justice system.

The NBA calls on the Independent National Electoral Commission to exercise its expanded supervisory powers with utmost neutrality, independence, and fidelity to democratic values. The Commission must not, under any circumstances, be perceived as a participant in political engineering or as an institution whose regulatory authority is deployed in a manner that weakens political pluralism.

The Chairman of INEC, being a distinguished Professor of Law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is uniquely positioned to appreciate the constitutional implications of these developments. The NBA expects that the Commission, under his leadership, will ensure that its actions reflect independence, fairness, and strict adherence to democratic norms. The Bar is closely watching the conduct of the Commission and expects that its regulatory role will strengthen, not diminish, confidence in Nigeria’s democratic process.

The Bar will deploy all lawful mechanisms, engagement, advisory opinions, strategic litigation, and disciplinary processes, to ensure that lawyers do not weaponize the legal process so that the judiciary is not misused. Lawyers must remain officers of the court, not architects of procedural manipulation. Nigeria’s democracy must not be weakened by legal maneuvering, institutional capture, or the misuse of judicial authority. The courts must remain arbiters of justice, not instruments of political advantage. Electoral institutions must remain neutral umpires, not participants in political contests.

The electoral institutions must operate within the bounds of constitutional democracy.

MAZI AFAM OSIGWE, SAN
PRESIDENT

A former University of Manitoba law school dean found to have misspent more than $600,000 from publicly-funded university coffers and is wanted by Winnipeg police on a Canada-wide arrest warrant, has been disbarred from practising law in his native United Kingdom, UK.

Just over two years after the Law Society of Manitoba (LSM) disbarred Jonathan Black-Branch following an internal probe into his “professional misconduct,” a Bar and Standards Board (BSB) for England and Wales disciplinary tribunal said in February that he failed to report any of what occurred in Canada when he returned to England.

Citing and relying heavily on the LSM’s 2023 conduct hearing, the board said it decided banishment was the only possible sanction for Black-Branch’s “blatant and sustained dishonesty,” which it said risked undermining public trust and confidence in the legal profession.

In a statement to National Post, the Manitoba law society said BSB took appropriate action in response to Black-Branch’s transgressions in Canada and his lack of disclosure.

“To maintain confidence in the regulation of the legal profession, such conduct should result in significant consequences,” the LSM wrote.

BSB also fined him £2,670 (CAD$4,961), adding to the $36,000 penalty already levied by the LSM.

The University of Manitoba sued Black-Branch in 2024, and last year, the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba granted a summary judgement, ordering him to repay the school $679,269.98, as reported by the Penticton Herald. At the behest of other law faculty members, the school later asked police to investigate in 2023.

A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Police Service would only tell National Post that their investigation is ongoing and Black-Branch remains wanted for alleged fraud over $5,000.

The report from the 2023 LSM conduct hearing, which formed the basis for the school’s lawsuit and ultimately led the university to engage police, paints a detailed picture of the regulatory body’s proven civil charges against Black-Branch.

First called to his homeland’s Bar in 1998, he taught at the University of Oxford, then relocated to Canada to take on the leadership role at U of M’s Robson Hall in 2016, becoming chair and director of its privately endowed Marcel A. Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law the following year. That entity was his primary slush fund, according to affidavits filed during the LSM complaints committee investigation.

An internal audit of his transactions proved that he spent $518,723 on non-degree programs at Harvard and Yale universities between April 2017 and February 2020. More than $472,000 of the expenses were charged to Desautels, which violated the fund’s terms, the school’s conflict-of-interest policy, and “fundamental principles of integrity,” the three-member Manitoba law society discipline committee panel wrote.

While attending the Ivy League courses, he also billed the university over $8,300 for food and lodging, even though it was included in the tuition, they added.

LSM pointed out that expenses charged to the school by all other faculty members combined over the same period amounted to less than $19,000.

Moreover, the society said Black-Branch didn’t seek approval from the Provost to make such expenditures and explicitly routed them through an internal invoice program that essentially allowed him to approve his own expenses.

When staffers asked him about the expenditures, one was told to “stop asking questions and to just pay the amounts.”

“This is the behaviour of a person who was clearly attempting to avoid detection for improper spending,” the panel wrote in Black-Branch’s conduct hearing report.

Not long before his suspected malfeasance came to a head, thanks to whistleblowers who alerted university administration in 2020, he used the system to funnel $75,000 of Desautels funds to the International Society of Law and Nuclear Disarmament (ISLAND), an organization he founded and served as president of its board of trustees while at U of M, the panel wrote. It was the first of three planned annual payments.

Under testimony, one staffer said he instructed her to use Swiss bank accounts, according to The Canadian Press.

Black-Branch was also proven through the school’s audit and subsequent investigation to have spent $50,000 for membership and 201 meals at The Manitoba Club, the first and oldest private club in Western Canada, regularly claiming they were business meetings, despite it being found that he almost always dined alone based on restaurant records.

One local lawyer, whom he claimed had supped with him over university business on 15 occasions, filed an affidavit stating no such meetings ever took place. Another lawyer, whose name appeared on 45 invoices, testified that he dined with Black-Branch only six to eight times, none of which involved U of M or Desautels, and that he paid for the meals several times.

By implicating others in these fraudulent claims, he made himself even more culpable.

He also expended close to $3,800 for meals at a board game cafe, which he documented as visits to “research startup ventures” on 44 of the 62 claims, per the LSM tribunal. Black-Branch ceased making any claims when the Provost challenged their validity.

“That the Member would have engaged in this misconduct to this extent, for this length of time, on this many occasions, in this many forms, and involving this many others in the processing of his improper claims is a particular concern,” and increases the seriousness of the allegations, the panel wrote in mid-December 2023.

The University, in a statement to National Post, said it immediately “replenished the endowment fund via self-insurance.”

Having left Canada for England shortly after an abrupt resignation in spring 2020, Black-Branch never appeared before the LSM, not even virtually, though he did file repeated motions to have it adjourned based on mental health trouble. The LSM said no response ever came to repeated requests that he provide evidence to support that assertion.

He also didn’t appear at the BSB hearing, but his absence means he can request another at a later date.

Black-Branch’s arrest and financial restitution to the school are proving problematic because his precise whereabouts are unknown. According to CTV, his last known address was in Oxford, but court records from the civil suit indicate that he could be in Switzerland.

The University said efforts to recover its funds are “ongoing.”

“Accountability is very important to the university, and UM intends to pursue all available collection remedies to secure payment of the judgment,” the University wrote.

The school has also tightened oversight by adopting a formal fraud-reporting policing, requiring a financial-ethics course for staff and faculty and instituting quarterly audits of all deans’ expenses.

National Post has not been able to locate any contact information for Black-Branch.

Comment *Credit: National Post (except headline)

A married paramedic who secretly killed his pregnant lover’s unborn child by injecting her with an abortion drug has been jailed for ten years and struck off from the health service.

Stephen Doohan, formerly a clinical team leader in the Scottish Ambulance Service, used a syringe to inject misoprostol into the woman’s vagina in March 2023.

Doohan, who was married at the time, researched the drug using his work account before committing the ‘calculating and heinous’ crime.

Read Also: Horror in Delta: Man accused of torturing wife to death so he could marry pregnant side chick

After turning himself in, he was jailed and struck off from working in the health service.

Doohan, from Edinburgh, met the victim while on holiday in Ibiza – they met around once a month thereafter.

She later received a positive pregnancy test result and said Doohan was the father.

They agreed to keep the baby after she travelled to Edinburgh to visit him – Doohan had separated from his wife by this time.

In March 2023 he penetrated her vagina without consent and inserted a syringe containing the common abortion drug misoprostol.

It later emerged he had looked up information on the drug using a work system while off-duty two days before.

He had begun to research abortion online when the woman told him of her pregnancy.

When he injected her the woman said she ‘felt something hard’ being pushed into her and assumed it was a sex toy.

But the next day a white substance began to come out of her and she had stomach cramps, for which she took diazepam.

Two days later he placed more of the drug in her vagina in similar circumstances.

The NHS advises that a further dose of misoprostol may be needed if the pregnancy does not ‘come out completely’ after the first.

When the woman confronted Doohan he initially denied his role before admitting it to her.

But he said he would be arrested if she told anyone – the pair rehearsed what they would tell others to explain the miscarriage.

The following morning she fell unconscious after taking a shower and noticed heavier bleeding.

After going to hospital with Doohan she was told she was having a miscarriage.

He later sent her gifts including perfume, socks, facial cleansing oil, money for a hair appointment and bought tickets for them to attend a football match.

In May 2025 Doohan appeared at Glasgow’s High Court where he was convicted of assaulting and sexually assaulting a pregnant woman.

Having pleaded guilty, he was jailed for 10 years and six months and added to the sex offenders register.

He was also hit with a non-harassment order banning him from contacting the victim for an indefinite period.

The ex-paramedic was then struck off from working in the profession by a Health & Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) hearing, which he did not attend.

At the hearing, its chair said Doohan’s actions caused the victim ‘not only physical harm but also ongoing emotional and psychological harm’.

They said she now lived with the ‘anguish’ of her miscarriage and Doohan’s ‘breach of trust’.

The HCPTS panel found Doohan ‘planned an illegal abortion by using unauthorised access to medical information via his workplace’.

He then ‘deliberately and intentionally sexually assaulted’ the woman ‘to abort their unborn child’ and ‘later attempted to persuade her to take the blame for the illegal abortion’.

After his conviction in May 2025, Fiona Kirkby, procurator fiscal for High Court sexual offences, said Doohan’s ‘calculated and heinous actions caused the loss of the victim’s pregnancy, robbing her of plans she had for the future’.

She added: ‘He has now been held accountable for this fundamental breach of trust. While offences like this are thankfully rare, I hope this prosecution sends a clear message to all those who seek to inflict sexual harm towards women.

‘Our thoughts remain with the victim, who must be commended for reporting her experience and seeking justice.

‘We recognise that reporting sexual offending can be difficult but would urge anyone affected to come forward and seek support when they feel ready to do so.’