Published 1st Apr, 2022

By Emmanuel Uti

Headfort Foundation, a humanitarian group in Nigeria, has narrated how Yauba Ibrahim, a motorcyclist and father of two, spent 26 months in prison for a crime he did not commit.

In a Twitter thread on Thursday, Headfort said some officers from the Orile Police Station arrested Ibrahim while he was driving a passenger to his destination in January 2020.

The policemen tried to take his bike, but “he dragged with them because he knew it would be difficult to recover the bike, so they arrested him”.

The officers arrested him because he wore a cap with army colours, and charged him to court for impersonation when he failed to bail himself at the station, according to Headfort.

2 years wasted in custody for not paying for bail!

Yauba Ibrahim is a 26year old widower with two children from Adamawa State. He left his family in 2019 to Lagos after Boko Haram terrorists destroyed and massacred people in his community to which his wife was a victim. pic.twitter.com/GtG791Bj93
— Headfort Foundation for Justice (@HeadfortF) March 31, 2022

Headfort said he was granted bail at the Yaba Magistrate Court, but was remanded in Ikoyi Prison. Ibrahim could not afford a lawyer. He also refused to call his brother, who catered for his kids.

Our lawyer, Juliet Mma, met him at the court cell in January 2022 and took his brief. She represented him and realised that Yauba was caught in the wheel of justice as nothing was happening in his case,” Headfort said.

“She did her investigations, made a good case, and the court ruled in her favour. On the 15th of March 2022, they released Ibrahim. He spent two years and two months in custody.”

Twenty-six-year-old Ibrahim left his family for Lagos in 2019, after Boko Haram terrorists massacred people, including his wife, in his community.

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