03/10/2025
THE COUNTRY I CALLED MY HOME NIGERIA 🇳🇬
She was born in December 1995, in London, but her roots stretched deep into Nigeria. From the earliest days, Sommie carried within her two worlds: the promise of possibility and the weight of expectation. She grew up in Port Harcourt, in a home where her parents claimed her as a blessing after years of waiting.
They say she once joked she was born with a microphone in her hand, that even before her first words, she felt a calling to be heard. She studied law in the UK, returned to Nigeria, did her NYSC, and labored in legal corridors with resolve. But Sommie was never content to limit herself to courtrooms and statutes. She believed in storytelling, in lifting voices, and in giving form to the unspoken.
In 2023, she entered Miss Tourism Nigeria, and though she did not win the crown, she won something sturdier: attention, respect, and a platform. She served as first runner-up. And soon after, she walked into the newsroom of ARISE News; reporter, anchor, producer, a woman with many hats, but one beating heart.
Her colleagues remember her as compassionate and bold, full of curiosity and integrity. She covered legal issues, women’s rights, NGOs, gender equality, she strove to speak for those whose voices were too often drowned. Viewers saw in her a sincerity, a warmth, a clarity. She was bright, articulate, sharp.
And yet, whispers of fear lived with her, as they live with many in Nigeria. On 14 August 2025, she posted a message on X (formerly Twitter):
“I pray from the depth of my heart that Nigeria never happens to me or anyone I care about.”
She did not explain further, but her words now haunt us. A prayer, almost prophetic.
Yesterday night, the 29th of September 2025, in her home in the Katampe area of Abuja, armed robbers invaded. Terrified by the commotion in adjoining flats, Sommie attempted to escape. She leapt from her window. She survived the fall, for a while. She tried calling the police, calling, begging to be rushed to hospital. But by the time help arrived, by then too late, she had already slipped from life.
Some say police arrived with no fuel in their vehicles. Some say the investigation is ongoing, that arrests must follow. But the hole left in our hearts is no crime to prosecute.
I imagine Sommie in her final moments, breathing, fighting, lucid, thinking of her life: the dreams she nurtured, the stories she had yet to tell, the justice she still believed in. She must have known, in that flash, how fragile a life could be in this land we call home.
She was 29. A mother should not bury her child. A country should not devour her brightest.
And so I tell her story, not merely as obituary, but as waking call. Sommie was more than a broadcaster, more than a lawyer, more than a public figure. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend. Her laughter echoed in studios; her empathy showed in interviews; her conviction lived in words.
Let us not forget her. Let us demand accountability. Let us carry her flame. Let her life not become a footnote, but a lodestar.
May Nigeria not happen to us. Unfortunately, Nigeria happened to Sommie.
✍️
