Femi Ashekun/
Headfort Foundation, a prison reform organisation, has detailed how Rasaq Ibrahim, a soap marketer in Delta State, spent six months in custody for an offence punishable by six months imprisonment.
This was despite the fact that the police could not produce any evidence to substantiate the offence he was alleged to have committed.
In a Twitter post on Monday, the foundation stated that Ibrahim was arrested by the police at an Ekiti hotel, where he went to see some of his friends, in February.
The foundation said after the police arrested Ibrahim and his friends, they arraigned them for the offence of “conducting themselves in a manner likely to cause a breach of peace by constituting nuisance in a public place”.
Upon arraignment, Ibrahim and his friends were all granted bail by the court and it was perfected on the same day, according to Headfort.
“The court gave Ibrahim several avenues to engage a lawyer, but he couldn’t afford to do so. The court referred him to our office on June 14, where he met our lawyer, Endurance Ezealaji, and his brief was taken,” Headfort tweeted.
“Our lawyer carried out a preliminary investigation and found out that Ibrahim’s friends had jumped bail, leaving just him to answer for the charge.”
The foundation said the court kept refusing the application of its lawyer’s request that the case be stricken out as there was no evidence to prove Ibrahim did anything wrong.
The officers who arrested him didn’t show up in court and nobody was attesting to the fact that they breached peace, Headfort said.
“After six months of awaiting trial for an offence punishable by one month of imprisonment, the court finally listened to our lawyer’s application to discharge Ibrahim on August 31, and it was granted,” Headfort stated.