Lafia, Nasarawa State – November 16, 2025 -The tragic story of Miss Tinyang Blessing Matthias and her two younger siblings is a heartbreaking tale of repeated loss, betrayal by family, and ruthless exploitation by those who knew them best. Having lost both parents in the most painful circumstances, the three young women—now all adults—have been rendered homeless after their late father’s house in Lafia was illegally sold by their own uncle and purchased by a neighbour who was fully aware they were orphans.
The children’s ordeal began in 2018 when their mother died, leaving them in the care of their father, Mr. Matthias Tinyang, a senior officer with the Nigeria Correctional Service whose rank was equivalent to that of an Assistant Superintendent of Corrections (ASC I). Barely a year later, in February 2019, tragedy struck again. While traveling along the notorious Takum–Katsina Ala road in Taraba State, Mr. Matthias was abducted by gunmen. He was being transferred from Talabah Correctional Centre to Lafia when the kidnappers struck. Despite efforts by the Nigerian Correctional Service to raise and pay ransom money, the officer was never seen alive again. After years of fruitless searching, he was officially presumed dead.
From that moment, Blessing (then barely a teenager) and her younger siblings became complete orphans, left to survive on their own with little or no support from extended family.
While the children struggled to feed themselves—eventually selling household items such as television sets, water tanks, and kitchen utensils just to buy food—their paternal uncle, Mr. Williams Hosea, was quietly plotting to strip them of their last inheritance: their father’s modest house in Lafia.
According to family sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Mr. Williams secretly sold the property in 2022 to none other than Mr. Mike Galadima, the family’s immediate neighbour who lived directly opposite the house and had known the Matthias family for decades. Mr. Galadima was fully aware that the children were orphans and that their father had been declared missing, yet he proceeded with the purchase.
“Not a single kobo from the sale reached the children. None of them was even informed that the house had been sold,” one distraught relative revealed.
To legalise the transaction, the uncle and other relatives went to court and obtained an order declaring Mr. Matthias dead after the mandatory seven-year waiting period required by Nigerian law for presumptive death. Once the order was secured, the house was put up for sale. Ironically, Mr. Galadima initially wrote “NOT FOR SALE” in bold paint on the wall of the compound, pretending to be protecting the orphans’ interest. But after applying pressure on the uncle, he became the buyer himself.
When the children, who were still living in the house, were suddenly informed that it now belonged to “Uncle Mike,” they were given marching orders to vacate. With nowhere to go, they became homeless.
Blessing’s plight only came to national attention in 2024 after a separate traumatic incident in which a university lecturer allegedly stripped her naked during an altercation, and the video went viral. As human rights activists, lawyers, and well-wishers rallied around her, questions arose about her family background. It was then that the full story of her double orphanhood and the stolen house emerged.
Following public outcry, the Nasarawa State Police Command arrested Mr. Mike Galadima, Mr. Williams Hosea, and several female relatives involved in the transaction. At the police station, all parties signed a written undertaking returning full ownership of the house to the three orphaned sisters and pledging never to lay claim to the property again.
That should have been the end of the nightmare. It was not.
When the sisters attempted to move back into their family home, Mr. Galadima—who by then had constructed three additional self-contained rooms in the compound—chased them away, claiming he had borrowed money to buy and develop the land. He subsequently filed a civil suit. Tragically, the principal seller, Mr. Williams Hosea, died in February 2025, before the case was concluded. Sources close to the family allege that Mr. Galadima deliberately concealed the uncle’s death from the court, falsely telling the judge that Mr. Williams was “deliberately dodging court appearances.”
Relying on that misrepresentation, the court eventually ruled in favour of Mr. Galadima. Last week, when bailiffs arrived to enforce the judgment, the Matthias sisters were physically assaulted and injured as they tried to resist eviction from their own father’s house. Legal experts have pointed out that a judgment delivered against a deceased defendant may be null and void ab initio.
On his deathbed, Mr. Williams reportedly confessed that he acted under intense pressure from Mr. Galadima and regretted betraying his brother’s children. A family member also disclosed that Mr. Galadima recently admitted in private that he purchased the entire property for just ₦5 million—a fraction of its actual value.
Even more chilling is the revelation that the late Mr. Matthias had never trusted his neighbour. Before his final journey, he reportedly warned Blessing never to trust Mr. Mike Galadima because they were not on good terms.
Today, the three sisters—now aged around 18 to early 20s—are homeless, squatting in a pastor’s residence in Lafia. One of them has secured admission into a higher institution but has no sponsor and cannot pay fees or accommodation. They are appealing to the Nasarawa State Government, the Nigerian Correctional Service, human rights organisations, and the general public for urgent intervention.
“We want justice,” a family supporter said. “You cannot sell a man’s house just because he went missing. Nobody fed his children for all these years, yet they shared the money from the sale among themselves. The court judgment was obtained by fraud because the main defendant was already dead. These children have suffered too much.”
As the sisters prepare to file an appeal and possibly approach the National Human Rights Commission and the Legal Aid Council, Nigerians on social media have once again rallied behind them, calling for the immediate reversal of the “stolen judgment” and for humanitarian assistance to be extended to the young women who have lost everything—first their parents, then their home, and now their faith in family and justice.
