Now, I can update the platform on what happened since.
I found the reason innodb-force-recovery=3 was crashing in the error log. As mentioned earlier (see below in blockquote) I had renamed both the ib logfiles in order to get mysql to create new ones as I had read somewhere that may resolve the problem.
Blockquote
“I renamed both ib_logfile0 and ib_logfile1 and they both got recreated when service.mysql command was ran.”
I saw in the log file that mysql was complaining about the files sequence numbers not being correct. So, I renamed the 2 current ones to something else and renamed the 2 old ones back to their original names. That did it for me. Although, while innodb-force-recovery=1 & 2 still crashed, innodb-force-recovery=3 ran smoothly that I was able to dump all the databases I needed except for 2 (one being the suspected rogue database and another database I can afford to lose). Then, I had to reinstall both the mariadb server and mariadb mysql client, then uploaded all the databases.
I must say it is not encouraging, makes one feel at ease or feel confident to use a database system if a little hic cup in one database can make the whole db system unusable. However, it is a relief that the databases could still be dumped after a lot of sweat and frustration.
Mariadb is a great relational database but it needs to address this issue with mysql client for mariadb.
To @susejunky and others who have helped me through this challenging exercise, many thanks to you!