A 15-year-old inmate, Mustapha Abubakar pleads with Borno State Governor, Babagana A. Zulum for speedy execution due to his plight in jail.
The Herald understands that Mustapha is currently awaiting execution as an inmate on death row in Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre (MMSCC) Borno State, along with 81 men and 2 women.
In a letter and video sighted on Sahara Reporters, Abubakar lamented that he was being sexually abused by older inmates and warders. He urged the governor to sign his death warrant expeditiously if his appeal for clemency would not materialise “within a reasonable time frame”.
Abubakar was sentenced to death by hanging at age 14 after he was reportedly lured into a get-rich-quick scheme through kidnapping for ransom led to the death of the hostage.
Being the youngest inmate at the facility lamented being “prostituted, subjected to physical, mental and unprotected sexual abuse from the older inmates and perverted warders”.
According to him, he would have committed suicide if not that his religion forbids it.
He lamented that it “is highly irresponsible of the government to mix underage boys with older men and then not expect anything bad to happen”.
Abubakar’s full letter reads:
September 1, 2023
His Excellency,
Professor Babagana A. Zulum,
Executive Governor Borno State,
Government House, Maiduguri.
Copy: His Excellency,
Senator Kashim Shettima,
(Immediate-Past Executive Governor of Borno State),
Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Your Excellency Sir,
A PLEA FOR CLEMENCY OR DEATH
It is in the name of Almighty Allah the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful that I make this desperate plea and distress call through an open letter.
My name is Mustapha Abubakar. I am a fifteen-year-old boy who was sentenced to death by hanging when I was fourteen. Currently, I am awaiting execution as an inmate on death row in Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre (MMSCC) Borno State, along with 81 men and 2 women. I am the youngest.
In my youthful exuberance, I allowed greed, and sheer stupidity on my part, to be lured into a get-rich-quick scheme of kidnapping for ransom in order to buy a power bike. Unfortunately, not only did the plan backfire, it led to the untimely death of the hostage, a fellow human being who had medical complications without our knowledge at the time.
I am remorseful. Oftentimes in my quiet time, I reflect over the trajectory my life has taken. While my mates in secondary schools are preparing for exams toward a meaningful future, I am here languishing in prison at the outset of my life, waiting for the hangman’s noose.
I feel ashamed of what I have done and sad to have let my family, friends, relatives and country down. Had I followed the right part, perhaps I would have turned out to be a surgeon; a dream I had once nurtured.
But I also sense that if given another chance, my deteriorating health permitting, I will turn out to be a wiser and productive citizen. With one stroke of your pen, my derailed life can be back on track.
Your Excellency, I use this medium to plead for clemency within a reasonable time frame. I also plead on behalf of the other inmates on death row who had sent you a letter through the authorities of this centre which was never acknowledged because it probably was not delivered to you in the first place.
Your Excellency, if clemency for me within a reasonable time frame is an absolute impossibility, then I will request your Excellency to please be kind enough to sign my death warrant expeditiously instead of the current trend of a perpetual wait for execution day, coupled with the stress and abuses from the prison warders who still operate with a punitive and repressive mindset.
My judgement was rendered in simple and unequivocal language which I understood clearly. Nothing was stated throughout the reading by the honourable judge that while waiting on death row indefinitely in Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre, I should be prostituted, and subjected to physical, mental and unprotected sexual abuse from the older inmates and perverted warders.
It is only because my religion forbids it, that I have not yet taken my life with my own hands.
It is highly irresponsible of the government to mix under-aged boys with older men and then not expect anything bad to happen. The juveniles here are like lamb in the midst of wolves.
Right now, I believe I may have already contacted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); that can progress to full-blown Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) through unprotected anal sex from a sick inmate who was imposed on me by a prison pimp. This, in itself, would make the second time a death sentence has been given to me.
Through this open letter, I wish to draw the attention of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) to respond as a matter of urgent national interest to what might become an epidemic starting from the Correctional facilities in Nigeria where sodomy without protection has become rampant. An inmate here, one Charles Okah, has even advised the authorities to provide condoms to inmates so that those engaged in anal sex secretly can protect themselves instead of pretending that all is normal. The same man also asked the authorities to put a stop to the sharing of sharp objects by inmates and staff alike for shaving, and nail cutting.
There was also nothing stated my judgement that during this waiting period I would be on forced/slave labour in prison. Especially during the groundnut planting season, the inmates are forced to toil in the privately owned plots of farmland the warders have allotted to themselves inside the prison yard. They are made to work under the blazing sun and at the end, harvest crops for free.
There was nowhere in my judgement that says when in the MMSCC, I should be denied medical attention when needed. The only thing dispensed at the infirmary are excuses. This has left the inmates to help themselves through self-medication with disastrous results. Infact warders actually buy medicines and give certain inmates to retail and hawk for them when these inmates haven’t been given any formal training on drug prescription. Drug abuse has become commonplace in the center. What is worrisome is that whenever drugs do arrive, staff, who are under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) are the major beneficiaries.
The judge did not mention that I should be starved or given bad food when provision has been made in the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS) huge food budget, now contaminated with corruption and greed. Feeding is becoming worse. We are fed on a handful of dry garri almost every day. The ration of parboiled beans given to inmates on death row usually comes with four teaspoons of palm oil, but even that have also ceased completely. In the past, during the period that Boko Haram detainees were held in MMSCC, the Nigerian Army and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) provided a piece of beef at least once a week to all inmates, with the warders having the lion’s share. Beef, which is included in the NCoS food budget is not provided anymore. The immediate past officer in charge of MMSCC, Deputy Controller Mohammad Jibia had insisted that the contractor met his contractual agreement by providing beef.
After his retirement that also stopped. Food contractors are usually wives of high-ranking Correctional Services officers.
On Thursday the 17th of August, the Chief Warder, Deputy Superintendent Usman Bokko told the inmates that since the NCoS can no longer afford to provide beef due to the oil subsidy removal, he had received “directives from above” to allow inmates catch, kill and eat any cats and kittens found in the prison yard; including cats brought since 2020 to control the large population of disease-carrying rats. Those cats and kittens kept by some inmates as pets for their psychological therapeutic benefits under a program unofficially introduced by Charles Okah were also slaughtered and eaten. The inmates were allowed to slaughter the animals inside their cells – turned-abattoirs.
Your Excellency, I witnessed the gracious gesture of the government in granting thousands of Boko Haram detainees a second chance. Among those enjoying the fresh air of freedom today are men who shared with us their evil exploits and heinous atrocities in their ignorance. And if the government can reform and rehabilitate and free a man who wiped out a whole family and displaced entire communities, surely the same government can consider a man who killed one person in anger, jealousy or under the influence.
The last act of a prerogative of Mercy by the Borno State government was in 2014 by your predecessor and now Vice President of Nigeria. And on May 30, 2019, just a day after you were sworn into office, you hit the ground running by ordering the release of hundreds of illegally detained woman, children and babies from MMSCC then known as Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison. That compassionate move you made, gave us the hope that we are still clinging to.
Your Excellency I will be lying if I say I am not scared of dying. But I see death as a better option than remaining inside a Nigerian prison which is the closest one can get to hell. If I have a choice in choosing the method of execution, I would opt for death by lethal injection as carried out in the United States of America. I was told that it’s similar to having an intravenous infusion.
Finally, allow me to close with a word of advice to youths and teenagers reading this letter. Crime and violence does not pay. For taking the wrong turn, I have ruined my life. Read and study so you do not end up like me. If the governor spares my life, fine. If not, so be it. I may also be taken away by the disease ravaging my body. I have taken responsibility for my past and let Allah’s will be done.
God bless you,
Mustapha Abubakar,
Inmate on Death Row