Bosede Onifade has a name for the body in the morgue and still nothing to bury. On 24 June 2026, a coroner's inquest in Lagos confirmed that the corpse tagged 1385 matched a DNA sample she supplied, identifying it as her son Pelumi, a 20-year-old journalism intern for Gboah TV who has been missing since 24 October 2020 [1]. Witnesses say he was shot while filming an #EndSars protest in Abule Egba and then dragged into a police taskforce van; a relative found his body in an Ikorodu morgue on 30 October, but by the time the family arrived it was gone [1]. "We want them to release his body," Bosede says, sobbing. "If they have already killed him; they should give his body to us to bury" [1].

The DNA match settles who, not what. It does not name who fired, establish cause of death, or produce an autopsy, custody records, or a charge. Inquiry panels found security agents responsible for shooting protesters across Nigeria; no one has been held responsible [1]. Amnesty's Nigeria director Isa Sanusi calls the refusal to hand over the remains "utter disdain for the pain of a victim of atrocity and his family" [1].

Online, the #EndSars memory economy reads the confirmation as the case closed, an identity standing in for a verdict. It isn't. The inquest has been adjourned twice and resumes 29 July, and recognition of a name in a mortuary ledger is not the release of a body, an identified officer, or a finding [1].

-- Anna Weber, London