The "federal character" is a principle, which was enshrined in Nigeria's Constitution since 1979 to ensure that appointments to public service institutions fairly reflect the linguistic, ethnic, religious, and geographic diversity of the country. As it is, it seems to be missing in our federation. The multi-award-winning columnist and Executive Head of The Guardian's Editorial Board, Martins Oloja, takes an analytical look at this issue in the latest installment of Inside Stuff. ⁣⁣⁣⁣

The table running across Samya Khasro's living room wall is a shrine to the missing: flickering candles and fading photographs of her 26 Iraqi relatives who vanished 35 years ago. Iraq is one of the countries with the highest number of missing or disappeared persons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), with numbers ranging between 250,000 and well over a million.

Ten years after the civil war, people are still searching for loved ones who disappeared during the conflict. Various commissions have been set up over the years to address the issue of the missing but many people are skeptical about them.

Missing Dapchi girls - Chief Of Air Staff temporarily relocates to Maiduguri.

Missing Dapchi schoolgirls - Gaidam visits community, commiserates with parents.

About 50 out of 926 missing Dapchi students said to be unaccounted for.

Mothers of missing schoolgirls demand to meet with Pres. Buhari