By
UGO ONUOHA
Our country Nigeria is broken. Almost. Beneficiaries of its present state of brokenness are unlikely to admit this. In my Igbo neck of the woods, it is often said that “ala adighi nma bu iru ndi Nze”. People in privileged and leadership positions usually benefit from conflict-ridden situations. In the business world those who are adept at it will tell anyone who cares to listen that a distressed corporation is a fertile ground for personal benefits for its leaders and those occupying strategic positions. I can’t vouch for the veracity of this claim because I didn’t probe further when I was told this about two decades ago. It’s possible to bring illumination to the Igbo adage of “ala adighi nma…” by elaborating on it. In a typical ancient Igbo community [it still holds true even today in some places], only titled men and especially those admitted to the “Nze na Ozo” confraternity were relied upon to settle disputes between individuals or groups or communities.
An “Nze” is regarded as a truth bearer, above board, without blemish and without reproach. Indeed in the long past era in the Igbo nation, persons with clouds over their lives would never be admitted into the revered group. In that era in some communities in Igbo land, nobody nominated themselves for admission to the group in spite of their personal wealth, prowess, or perceived standing. It’s the kinsmen who will evaluate a person, and then proceed to request him to take the “Ozo” title. It was not a cheap ceremony, and membership was not taken lightly. It was cultural. It was spiritual. It was deep. Members were revered. Membership was exclusive. Membership entails rituals and covenants. But over time, bastardization has set in. Currently, in many parts of the Igbo nation, all manner of people take the “Ozo” title including armed robbers, prolific liars, known adulterers, and advance fee fraudsters. Some diasporan Igbo now take the title in absentia. They just send money home and their relatives will do the needful. Nobody asks questions about their means of livelihood or personal standing in their places of abode abroad.
For the real “Nze na Ozo”, hosting meetings to resolve disputes does not come cheap. And the parties to the dispute bear the cost of making the provisions for the titled men whenever they meet. So the more frequently there are disputes to settle the better for the arbitrators because of the attendant benefits- in cash and kind. That’s the origin of “ala adighi nma bu uru ndi Nze”. And this is why and how a broken country as is the case with Nigeria comes to the fore. Injustice benefits some people. A few Nigerians profit from corruption. That insurgency has become interminable is because some military generals and civilian collaborators and politicians are reaping billion Naira benefits from the conflicts. Insecurity has become an industry, and combating it, a lucrative business. The more trillions of Naira our governments at all levels sink into battling it, the worse that the situation becomes. If our elections are routinely and brazenly rigged, it’s also down to the fact that there are beneficiaries. There’s pay off for some people in every rotten system. And there are people left with the short end of the stick.
It is at this other end of our broken and benighted country that the likes of Citizen Gospel Uebari Kinanee are found. Gospel was a ghost with breath, flesh and blood. He ‘died’ and was ‘mourned’, and ‘buried’, and forgotten by his family. Until he did not die again after 18 years had passed by. He ‘died’ at 14 years and ‘resurrected’ at 32. We will let Haven360 Foundation recount the heart-breaking story of how Nigeria’s security and criminal justice system wasted the life of a citizen. But he was fortunate because he lives to tell the story. First the headline: After 18 Years In Prison As A “Ghost”, Gospel Kinanee Finally Gains Freedom- Reunited With Family After Vanishing At Age 14.
“In a moment that brought tears to many eyes and renewed our hope in humanity, Gospel Uebari Kinanee, who has been locked away in silence and forgotten for 18 long years, has finally regained his freedom- thanks to the tireless efforts of our team at Haven360 Foundation. We first met Gospel during one of our outreach visits in September 2024. He stood apart- not just physically, but in spirit. He barely spoke, his eyes were distant, his thoughts fragmented. But there was something in him that called out for help, for healing, for justice. As we dug deeper, we encountered a shocking discovery: there was no record of Gospel in the prison system. No case file. No documentation. It was as if he didn’t exist. A ghost behind bars. Authorities had no answers. Prison officials could only say [that] he had ‘been there for years’. How many years? No one could say. Why? No one knew. But we were determined not to leave Gospel behind.
So, “Despite his mental condition and difficulty [in] communicating, we pressed on- believing that no human being deserves to be abandoned and erased in such a cruel way. After months of letters, investigations, petitions, and sleepless nights, our team traced a possible lead back to a village in Ogoni, Rivers state. And there, everything changed. We found Gospel’s family. His name was not a number. He had not always been lost. He had been loved. According to his heartbroken family, Gospel went missing in 2007, when he was just 14 years old. He had been sleeping outside one [fateful] night when, according to his own account in his native Ogoni language, he was forcefully taken away by the police – allegedly incited by an influential neighbour for reasons he [did] not understand. He remembers only waking up behind prison walls. That’s where his childhood ended. That’s where time stopped for him.
“His family searched [frantically and] endlessly. They knocked on doors, reported to authorities, prayed, hoped, and eventually mourned him as dead- until…they received a call from Haven360 Foundation that Gospel was alive”. And that was how 18 years of separation and silence “ended in an emotional reunion”. About two weeks ago, precisely on July 17, and in a “deeply moving session at the Goal Delivery, the Chief Judge of Rivers state formally discharged Gospel, confirming that no charge had ever existed [against him]. Gospel walked out of the prison not as a ghost, but as a man reclaiming his name, his story, his right to live”.
It’s instructive that up until July 17, Gospel counted as one of the staggering 54,000 inmates in Nigeria’s prisons who are awaiting trial in court. But he had no charges preferred against him. In fact he was not officially in detention. He was a ghost. Who knows how many people are in jail but are not in the books of our so-called correctional centres? This raises the possibility that the 54,000 persons formally captured as awaiting trial detainees could be under counting, and the 82,000 total prison population a figment of someone’s imagination. The numbers could be far more than the record shows. In the meantime, authorities of the Nigerian Correctional Service bemoan overcrowding of prisons with awaiting trial inmates accounting for 66% of the total prison population. The high and mighty ensured that hell broke loose when Dele Farotimi said in a book that the country’s criminal justice system was opaque and corrupt, and that it needed to be torn down. The travails of Citizen Gospel Uebari Kinanee illustrate the dire situation of our country. Nigeria will remain a bye word for all that’s disagreeable until it becomes a safe place for the vulnerable and the powerless.
