After almost 16 years in prison, one of the men convicted for the October 1,2010 bomb blast in Abuja Charles Okah, yesterday decried his solitary confinement for the 501thday at the Maiduguri Correctional Centre.

He said he is being punished for raising the alarm that officials of the Nigerian Correctional Service were allegedly forging court warrants to release inmates.

He also appealed to President Bola Tinubu to grant him state pardon to attend to his failing health.

He said Edmund Ebiware, who bagged life sentence with him in 2018, was given clemency in 2022 by the late President Muhammadu Buhari.

Okah, who has an ailing kidney, was jailed for life with his co-defendant, Obi Nwabueze, for masterminding the 2010 Independence Day bomb blast in Abuja and an earlier one in Warri, Delta State, on March 15 of the same year.

They were sentenced in March 2018 by Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court.

The two convicts were said to have conspired with Henry Okah, who was the leader of the defunct Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).

Henry was jailed by a South African court in 2013 for similar offences and sentenced to 24 years imprisonment.

But speaking with our correspondent on the phone, Charles Okah said he had exposed to Interior Minister Olubunmi Ojo alleged cases of forged court warrants to secure the release of inmates.

He claimed that his action had resulted in victimisation, including solitary confinement.

He said: “I have been in solitary confinement for 501 days in Maiduguri prison. I am psychologically down. I am isolated from other inmates. I thought I was being a good citizen. I exposed what was happening, but up till now, they have kept me locked up.

“I was saying that some people were forging court warrants to release inmates. I exposed it to the Minister, and that is what has kept me locked up for over one year.”

He appealed to President Tinubu to intervene in his case and grant him state pardon.

He said he has more to contribute to the country outside prison.

“My appeal to the President is that he should release me now because I think I have a lot to offer this country outside prison than being in prison,” he said.

“I don’t know if Mr President can really look into my case.President Tinubu should pardon me.”

Recalling a previous instance in which a life-sentenced inmate was released by the late President Buhari, he said he hoped a similar intervention could be made in his case.

He also said the inmate he referred to, Ebiware, had been serving a life sentence like himself.

He added: “My friend with a similar case was released by Buhari in 2022. Edmund Ebiware was in Sokoto Prison while I was here in Maiduguri Prison. He is free now. He is outside, although I have not spoken with him recently.

“He was on a life sentence like me.”

Asked how long he had been in detention, he said: “About 16 years now. Since 2010.”

The inmate expressed hope that he would eventually regain his freedom and meet with those advocating for his release.

“I hope that I will walk out and we will meet ourselves. I am not a bomb blast perpetrator,” he said.

Okah said he is almost losing the only kidney left with him.

In a letter on September 3, 2019 to the Comptroller-General of Nigerian Correctional Service by his counsel, C. A. Mishael, Okah said he was not enjoying good health.

The letter said in part: “We are solicitor to Mr. Charles Tombra Okah (our client) who is presently under your custody at the Maximum Security Prisons. Borno State. His conviction by Federal High Court Abuja is currently the subject of appeal at the Court of Appeal. Abuja.

“Our client has been living on a single kidney for the past 37 years and this fact, without gainsaying, makes it imperative for constant medical attention which he has not been getting at the Maiduguri Maximum Prisons.

“While he was being held at the Kuje Prisons, he had access to medical experts at the National Hospital Abuja.

“More recently, our client has been experiencing uncontrolled hand tremor and has been passing blood in his urine. He also has developed other ailments that require urgent and expert medical review.

“The Maximum Security Prison in Maiduguri Borno State. Where he is presently being held lacks both the expertise and facilities to treat our client of the kidney related ailments and other health challenges he is currently facing.

“We therefore apply that the controller inMaiduguri be directed to grant our client permission to attend a medical facility that has the facility to adequately treat him.

“In the alternative, we apply that our client be transferred back to Abuja or Lagos Prisons from where he can have access to proper medical treatment.

“While we anticipate your usual cooperation. Please accept the assurances of our highest consideration.” (The Nation)

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