The family of Gospel Kinanee, who went missing as a 14-year-old boy in 2007, has finally been reunited with him after he spent 18 years in the Port Harcourt Correctional Centre without any formal charge or record of arrest.
According to his elder brother, Gospel left home in the afternoon to play with friends in 2007 but never returned. After an exhaustive search across their community, police stations, hospitals, and other locations yielded no results, the family gave up hope. The trauma of his disappearance led to the death of both parents the same year.
In early 2025, the family was contacted by lawyers led by Cyrus Onu, who had discovered Gospel during a prison welfare and rehabilitation exercise. At the time of his discovery, Gospel, now 32, was mentally unstable, could not recognise his family members, and had no recollection of how he ended up in prison.
He was released after the Chief Judge of Rivers State granted him clemency. Medical examinations revealed he was physically stable but suffers from severe mental health issues believed to have developed during his long incarceration.
credit: Punch
