A human right activist, Mubarak Bala, in his 37th month incarceration in Kuje Prison in Abuja, has appealed to President Bola Tinubu, to grant him amnesty, in the spirit of the June 12 Democracy Day anniversary.
Bala, who claimed that he was unjustly imprisoned in Kuje Prison, was formerly in Kano prison and passionately begged the President to release him, so he could go back home to his family, society and seek medical help, as well as further his education.
In an open letter to the President, the Convict, said his appeal to the federal high courts in Kano have never been heard nor admitted and will not be for at least another year.
According to the letter dated 29th of May 2023, originally handwritten, was typed and released to the Journalists by his lawyer/wife.
The activist described his self as a prisoner of conscience, sought after only because he refused to follow the religion he was born into, especially coming from descendants of the 1804 conquerors.
He noted that “I’m a convict, which makes me eligible for your pen to sign my freedom. My appeal to the federal courts in Kano have never been heard nor admitted, and will not be at least for another year I learnt. Femi Falana SAN stands to represent me, which I hope will annul everything including the conviction and reparations paid to me for the damages, and time served.
“My wife was summoned at the twilight of the last administration, that she, and my sister should come and collect me, that everything has been finalized, she spent money and left her work: being asked to wait further two days, further two days, another two days, until the government ended and she was asked to go that she will be called again. She wasn’t, now they are out of office, so please end this appalling injustice.
The letter read: “Dear Mr. President, Your Excellency sir, I am hereby drafting a handwritten note from my jail cell, on occasion of your inauguration as our new leader, to lead us through the next four or eight years. But given the chain this letter has to be relayed, it may reach your desk on or beyond our democracy day, this is also so as to allow you some time to settle in the new seat for the tough job.
“Sir, this is my 37th month unjustly imprisoned in Abuja, formerly in Kano prison. Back in 2013 sir, when I tried to intimate my immediate family that I have left the religion long ago during my University years, I was immediately put in a psychiatric hospital by my father and uncles, in connivance with a friendly-doctor, even as another doctor from same hospital has a year prior, assured them that I am sane and smart, and that all they need to do is preach to or pray for me, but within a year in 2014, the delicate peace and diplomacy, proselytizing, sanctions and threats, deteriorated to an attempted brain castration, a calculated, sinister chemically induced lobotomy, in same Kano State, at a federal hospital, they later said it was simply to protect me as the media came to probe, and that it was an internal family affair which requires respect to their privacy. And so, the media stayed off.
“They violently sedated me, force-fed me drugs meant for epileptic patients, (I wasn’t ever epileptic), another for schizophrenic patients, I was not maniacal, and yet another as anti-psychotics. I have had none of these symptoms but I was sedated and kept for weeks until I wrote emails globally to seek help and I got rescued.
“It is worthy of your notice Mr. President, for this crime, no one was arrested, no one was punished, and no one lost their license, I was simply discharged quietly from the hospital, begged to forgive and forgo, and then later betrayed and disowned and threatened further as the news broke out to the larger society.
“Since then, I have received constant death threats so much that I got used to it, sometimes illiterate morons, other times by seemingly university educated folks who have chosen the path of radicalism, instead of tolerance, ordinary civilians and clerics that inspired jihadism among our youths, only to leave the doctrine with the followers and come back to counter it hypocritically. I wish you a happy democracy day.”