The nightmare of unlawful detention continues to unfold for a family in Abia State as a final-year student of the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu, remains behind bars with her father and two siblings, risking her entire academic future.

Gift Chikadibia, a student of the Marketing Department at IMT Enugu, has been locked up since April 12, 2025, after she was arrested alongside her father and sisters in what has been described as a brutal and unjust police operation in Umuahia, the Abia State capital.

On Monday, her mother, Chioma Chikadibia, told SaharaReporters that the ongoing detention is threatening her daughter’s graduation.

“Chikadibia Ogechi Gift, she is a student of the Institute of Management and Technology Enugu. She is in the Marketing department,” she said.

“The institution has started exams. She had just returned home for Easter holidays on April 12, and that very day, the incident happened.”

“She is a final student now, at the risk of carrying over all of her courses, not graduating with her mates,” Mrs Chikadibia added.

A copy of the IMT examination timetable seen by SaharaReporters confirms that her final exams began on May 15 and will end on May 28, 2025.

SaharaReporters had earlier reported how police officers from the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, Mopol Base Umuahia, stormed the family compound in a midnight raid, arrested Mr. Chikadibia Sunday and three daughters, and whisked them away to an undisclosed location.

The police have offered no explanation for the arrests, and the detainees have been denied access to lawyers or any form of communication since then.

The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), a human rights watchdog, first raised the alarm over the case, describing it as another harrowing example of police lawlessness and the abuse of due process in Nigeria.

According to RULAAC, the police officers who carried out the operation were heavily armed and not in uniform. They broke into the family’s property, ransacked the home, and made away with valuables and money.

One of the daughters who spoke anonymously said: “They were fully armed, they were five in number, they were not in uniform… They said go to Glory’s room and search, where is Ikenna’s; they broke the door of his room, collected all the properties inside his room and some money.”

Another family member, Ngozi Chikadibia, was allegedly lured to a location by a phone call and subsequently abducted. The other sisters, Sunday Glory and Gift Chikadibia, were also picked up and detained.

Despite repeated attempts by the family’s lawyer to access the detainees, police authorities have remained tight-lipped and hostile.

A source, however, told SaharaReporters that the family members are being held at the Mopol Base and mistreated.

RULAAC’s Executive Director, Okechukwu Nwanguma, condemned the incident, stating that it represents a shocking abuse of police power and a disregard for citizens’ rights.

“RULAAC is alarmed at this information which reveals a gross abuse of police power, abuse of due process and established procedures for arrest, detention and treatment of persons arrested and detained for any alleged offence,” he said.

He called on the Inspector-General of Police and the Abia State police commissioner to urgently investigate the case, punish those responsible, and release the detained family members immediately.