A Nigerian man has shared a heartbreaking account of how he allegedly spent nearly five decades behind bars after what began as a childhood accident, saying he was imprisoned at the age of 13 and only regained his freedom at 60 following the intervention of a state governor.
The elderly man, who recently celebrated his 78th birthday, recounted his extraordinary life story in an emotional testimony that has sparked widespread sympathy and renewed calls for justice sector reforms.
According to him, his ordeal began in Maiduguri, Borno State, where he lived with his family and helped his father, a sugarcane farmer, by hawking sugarcane after school.
He recalled that on a scorching afternoon, while searching for shade to rest, the wheelbarrow carrying his sugarcane accidentally struck a parked vehicle, damaging one of its headlights.
Instead of fleeing the scene, the teenager said he remained there for about 30 minutes, clutching the broken headlight and waiting for the owner to return.
The owner, he claimed, was a police officer who had been praying at a nearby mosque.
Rather than hearing his explanation, the officer allegedly assaulted him, threatened bystanders with a pistol, and drove him to a police station where he ordered that the boy be locked up.
“I spent the night in the cell without food,” he recalled, adding that the only meal provided the following morning was a piece of bread shared among inmates.
What he believed would be a brief detention, he said, turned into a nightmare.
Days became weeks, weeks turned into months, and despite repeatedly pleading with officers to release him, he said no one paid attention to his cries.
After about a month in police custody, he was taken to court with other detainees, however, when the court did not sit, the group was remanded in prison.
That marked the beginning of what he described as a lifetime behind bars.
Over the years, he was transferred from one correctional facility to another, including prisons in Bauchi, the South-East, the South-West, Ibadan and eventually Kano State.
Along the way, he worked in prison laundry units and became a familiar face among inmates and prison officials.
By the time he reached Kano, he said he was already 60 years old and was widely known as “Baba” within the prison community.
He said many inmates found his story difficult to believe, assuming that everyone in prison had committed a serious offence.
His fate reportedly changed when a state governor visited the correctional centre shortly before leaving office.
According to the elderly man, the governor noticed him and asked a simple question that no one had asked in decades: “How old are you, and what brought you here?”
The question, he said, opened the floodgates of emotion.
As he narrated his experience, prison officials and inmates were left stunned.
The governor immediately ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his incarceration.
The inquiry, he claimed, revealed that the police officer responsible for his detention had since risen to become a respected traditional ruler.
The governor reportedly took the elderly inmate, still dressed in his prison uniform, to meet the monarch.
During the emotional encounter, the traditional ruler allegedly admitted his wrongdoing and pleaded for forgiveness, offering to build him a house, provide financial support and even arrange a wife for him.
But the former inmate said the years stolen from his life could never be restored.
“He took my youth. He took my future. He took my family. I lost my identity,” he said.
Rejecting the monarch’s offers, he declared that no amount of wealth or material gifts could compensate for the decades he lost behind prison walls.
“I don’t need a house or a wife. Prison became my life. At this age, what life is left to start over?” he was quoted as saying.
The governor eventually granted him amnesty and reportedly helped him rebuild his life by establishing a provision shop to support his livelihood.
Now 78, the elderly man says he is grateful to be alive despite the unimaginable hardship he endured.
