Human rights activist, Mubarak Bala who has been in Kuje Prison, in Abuja for 37 months has appealed to President Bola Tinubu for amnesty, in the spirit of the June 12 Democracy Day.
Bala who was formerly incarcerated in Kano prison claimed he was unjustly imprisoned and begs the President to release him, to seek medical care, reunite with his family and further his education.
The convict in an open letter to President Tinubu said, his appeal to the federal high court in Kano was never heard nor admitted and will not be for at least another year.
The letter dated May 29, 2023, originally handwritten, was typed and released to the Journalists by his lawyer/wife and also published online.
Bala was arrested, sentenced for blasphemy and is to spend 40 years in prison (24+16) as he explained in the letter.
The activist who wrote from the Counter Terrorism Unit of Kuje Prison also made an appeal for other prisoners in the facility specifically on the grounds of age and innocence, who were incarcerated on charges bordering on terrorism.
“Free me sir, and also free these kids so they go back to school, the boys are only being wasted while the culprits have since broke the jail and left… Free also, those Officers that served to secure the country from terrorists, for decades”, an excerpt from the letter reads.
He noted that “I’m a convict, which makes me eligible for your pen to sign my freedom”.
Mubarak Bala a self-identified atheist from Kano State and a former President of the Nigeria Humanist Association in Nigeria was arrested on April 28, 2020, following a petition by a group of lawyers to the police in Kano for his arrest over a Facebook post considered blasphemous.
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