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UK Publishes Names Of Dead Nigerians With Unclaimed Estates, Assets

Published

2 years ago

September 16, 2022

Editor

One of the unclaimed estates

No fewer than 56 dead Nigerian names with reported unclaimed estates and other valuable assets in the United Kingdom have been published by the United Kingdom government.

This was contained in UK’s government Treasury Solicitor website which was last updated on September 8, 2022, as reported by BusinessDay.

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The unclaimed estates have a 30-year time limit from the date of death before it is removed if no person comes to claim the ownership.

Oldest victim
According to the report, one of the oldest affected Nigerians was identified as Mark N’wogo, who died on December 9, 1992, in Surrey, United Kingdom.

But the assets he left behind have gone unclaimed for nearly 30 years, which means that his properties would be surrendered to the British government by December 2022.

He was believed to have served in the Navy, which gave his birth year as 1926, and to have an unspecified family in Sapele, Delta state, but neither this individual nor any others had stepped forward to claim the deceased’s possessions.

The values of these estates are not published; instead, only information about their deceased owners is available.

Familiar name
Another familiar name on the list is Victor Adedapo Olufemi Fani-Kayode, who is alleged to have died on August 15, 2001, in Birmingham, with the Birmingham City Council identified as the informant.

The Treasury Solicitor released a list of untaken estates that had recently been mentioned but had not yet been managed, as well as past instances that had been administered but had not yet been claimed within the time constraints for doing so.

Estates with a 30-year time limit from the date of death are likewise exempted.

“We frequently hear of accounts in financial institutions belonging to deceased people that are never claimed and are never made public by these institutions. I believe we can take a leaf out of the UK’s book in this area to promote transparency,” says Olaitan Akinnubi, a Lagos-based lawyer.

“I believe that making information about deceased people and their unclaimed assets public in the UK is something that is worthwhile.”

However, most of the deceased have little information on relatives to whom their assets may be transferred, and for those with available information, it is quite inadequate and hard to trace beneficiaries.

Other names
The list includes a certain Arbel Aai’Lotta’Qua Abouarh that died on February 5, 1998, in Chiswick, London, and is thought to have different variations in the spelling of his name. Information on file indicates that he may have been married in December 1959 (place unknown) and had four children from the marriage.

It is further stated he was born in Northern Nigeria on or about the 3rd March 1930 and his parents are said to be Alfred Hallim Abouarh and Addanue Abouarh nee Onwudachi. Information on file also indicates that he had a sister (deceased) and a twin brother (possibly living in Germany).

There is also Paul (Akinola) Bernard who was born in Lagos and died in London on October 12, 2008. Available information suggests he married a 2nd wife, Marie Vidarte de Castro in 1970, but she also died in August 2008. He is believed to have a daughter from his first marriage which ended around 1970.

Born in Ibadan on August 2, 1958, John Olaolu Bankole died in London on April 27, 2010. The information available includes a Decree Absolute dissolving the deceased’s marriage on 11 November 2002, while his marriage certificate states that his father’s name is Oladipupo Bankole.

While Enwukwe Graham Kwedi Edde, who died on January 6, 2011, in London is only known to have been born in Diobu, River State, Charles Ayodele Aliu, who died on March 31, 2011, in Solihull, West Midlands is said to “have a possible cousin in Nigeria”.

Sunny Eyo Edem, who died on September 16, 2011, in Fulham is believed to have a “Possible son and relatives in Calabar, Nigeria”. Also, William Kadry, who died on November 1, 2011, in Fulham, is said to have been born in Iponri, Lagos State, and his father Akanni Kadiri died in 1941, while his mother Muniratu Kadiri died in 1958.

Recent additions to the list include Solomon Adekanmibi who died on January 31, 2021, in Colchester, Essex; Eugene Bucknor, who died on March 2, 2021, in Brockley, London; Jeff Adhekeh, who died on March 12, 2021, in South Kensington, London and Louisa Holmes, who died on May 24, 2021, in Cheam Sutton.

According to Akinnubi, the legal practitioner, “For the relatives of any such deceased person or any other person entitled to the estate of any of the listed deceased persons, it is advisable that they engage a Probate Solicitor or Practitioner in the UK to help and guide them through the process of obtaining letters of administration in respect of the deceased person’s Estate in the UK.”

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JUST IN: Helicopter Carrying Iran’s President Crashes

Published

47 mins ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been involved in an incident while he was visiting neighboring Azerbaijan, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reports.

“Some of the president’s companions on this helicopter were able to communicate with Central Headquarters, raising hopes that the incident could have ended without casualties,” it added.

It is unclear what the exact status is of Raisi’s helicopter.

The helicopter was part of a convoy of three helicopters. Two of those helicopters were carrying ministers and officials who arrived at their destination safely, according to Tasnim.

“Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Al-Hashem, Tabriz’s Friday Prayer Imam, and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were also reportedly on the helicopter with the president,” Tasnim said on X.

More Details Later…

Headline

Iran Hangs 53-year-old Woman, Six Others

Published

20 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Editor

Iran on Saturday hanged at least seven people, including two women, while a member of its Jewish minority is at imminent risk of execution as the Islamic Republic further intensified its use of capital punishment, an NGO said.

Parvin Mousavi, 53, a mother of two grown-up children, was hanged in Urmia prison in northwestern Iran along with five men convicted in various drug-related cases, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said in a statement.

In Nishapur in eastern Iran, a 27-year-old woman named Fatemeh Abdullahi was hanged on charges of murdering her husband, who was also her cousin, it said.

IHR says it has tallied at least 223 executions this year, with at least 50 so far in May alone. A new surge began following the end of Persian New Year and Ramadan holidays in April, with 115 people including six women hanged since then, it said.

Iran carries out more recorded executions of women than any other country. Activists say many such convicts are victims of forced or abusive marriages.

Iran last year carried out more hangings than in any year since 2015, according to NGOs, which accuse the Islamic republic of using capital punishment as a means to instill fear in the wake of protests that erupted in autumn 2022.

“The silence of the international community is unacceptable,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told AFP.

“Those executed belong to the poor and marginalised groups of Iranian society and didn’t have fair trials with due process.”

‘Killing machine’

IHR said Mousavi had been in prison for four years. It cited a source as saying she had been paid the equivalent of 15 euros to carry a package she had been told contained medicine but was in fact five kilos of morphine.

“They are the low-cost victims of the Islamic Republic’s killing machine, which aims at instilling fear among people to prevent new protests,” added Amiry-Moghaddam.

The group meanwhile said a member of Iran’s Jewish community, which has drastically reduced in numbers in recent years but is still the largest in the Middle East outside Israel, was at imminent risk of execution over a murder charge.

Arvin Ghahremani, 20, was convicted of murder during a street fight when he was 18 and is scheduled to be executed in the western city of Kermanshah on Monday, it said, adding it had received an audio message from his mother Sonia Saadati asking for his life to be spared.

His family is seeking to ask the family of the victim to forgo the execution in line with Iran’s Islamic law of retribution, or qesas.

Also at risk of execution is Kamran Sheikheh, the last surviving member of a group of seven Iranian Kurdish men who were first arrested between early December 2009 and late January 2010 and later sentenced to death for “corruption on earth” over alleged membership of extremist groups, it said.

Six men convicted in the same case have been executed in the last months almost one-and-a-half decades after their initial arrest, the last being Khosro Besharat who was hanged in Ghezel Hesar prison outside Tehran this week.

There has been an international outcry meanwhile over the death sentence handed out last month to Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, seen by activists as retaliation for his music backing the 2022 protests. His lawyers are appealing the verdict.

AFP

Headline

Israeli Leaders Disagree Over Post-war Gaza Governance Amid US Pressure

Published

21 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Editor

New divisions have emerged among Israel’s leaders over post-war Gaza’s governance, with an unexpected Hamas fightback in parts of the Palestinian territory piling pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli army has been battling Hamas militants across Gaza for more than seven months while also exchanging near-daily fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah forces along the northern border with Lebanon.

But after Hamas fighters regrouped in northern Gaza, where Israel previously said the group had been neutralised, broad splits emerged in the Israeli war cabinet in recent days.

Netanyahu came under personal attack from Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for failing to rule out an Israeli government in Gaza after the war.

The Israeli premier’s outright rejection of post-war Palestinian leadership in Gaza has broken a rift among top politicians wide open and frustrated relations with top ally the United States.

Experts say the lack of clarity only serves to benefit Hamas, whose leader has insisted no new authority can be established in the territory without its involvement.

“Without an alternative to fill the vacuum, Hamas will continue to grow,” International Crisis Group analyst Mairav Zonszein told AFP.

Emmanuel Navon, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, echoed this sentiment.

“If only Hamas is left in Gaza, of course they are going to appear here and there and the Israeli army will be forced to chase them around,” said Navon.

“Either you establish an Israeli military government or an Arab-led government.”

US pressure

Gallant said in a televised address on Wednesday: “I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza strip.”

The premier’s war planning also came under recent attack by army chief Herzi Halevi as well as top Shin Bet security agency officials, according to Israeli media reports.

Netanyahu is also under pressure from Washington to swiftly bring an end to the conflict and avoid being mired in a long counterinsurgency campaign.

Washington has previously called for a “revitalised” form of the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza after the war.

But Netanyahu has rejected any role for the PA in post-war Gaza, saying Thursday that it “supports terror, educates terror, finances terror”.

Instead, Netanyahu has clung to his steadfast aim of “eliminating” Hamas, asserting that “there’s no alternative to military victory”.

Experts say confidence in Netanyahu is running thin.

“With Gallant’s criticism of Netanyahu’s failure to plan for the day after in terms of governing Gaza, some real fissures are beginning to emerge in the Israeli war cabinet,” Colin P. Clarke, director of policy and research at the Soufan Group think tank, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“I’m not sure I know of many people, including the most ardent Israel supporters, who have confidence in Bibi,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

Hostage ‘impasse’

The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 125 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 37 the military says are dead.

Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 35,386 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, and an Israeli siege has brought dire food shortages and the threat of famine.

Many Israelis supported Netanyahu’s blunt goals to seek revenge on Hamas in the aftermath of the October 7 attack.

But now, hopes have faded for the return of the hostages and patience in Netanyahu may be running out, experts said.

On Friday, the army announced it had recovered bodies of three hostages who were killed during the October 7 attack.

After Israeli forces entered the far southern city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Gazans were sheltering, talks mediated by Egypt, the United States and Qatar to release the hostages have ground to a standstill.

“The hostage deal is at a total impasse — you can no longer provide the appearance of progress,” said Zonszein of the International Crisis Group.

“Plus the breakdown with the US and the fact that Egypt has refused to pass aid through Rafah — all those things are coming to a head.”