26/07/2026
I WAS JAILED AT 13, FREED AT 60
I was 13 years old, living in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. After school every day, I hawked sugarcane for my father, who was a sugarcane farmer.
I still remember how he would hire a wheelbarrow for 20 kobo. We would carefully arrange the sugarcane on it and push it around the city, selling from street to street.
I came from a large polygamous family. I had many brothers and sisters. Our compound was always full of life, laughter, quarrels, and love. I never imagined that one ordinary afternoon would become the last day my family would see me for almost half a century.
One fateful afternoon after school, I was pushing my wheelbarrow through town. The heat was unbearable. Anyone who has lived in Northern Nigeria knows how scorching Maiduguri can be. I was simply looking for shade under a tree to rest.
As I maneuvered the wheelbarrow, I accidentally scraped and knocked off the headlight of a car parked by the roadside near a garage.
Fear gripped me.
I wanted to run, but my conscience would not allow it. Instead, I stood there for nearly 30 minutes, waiting for the owner to return.
I didn't know he was praying in a nearby mosque inside the park.
When he finally came back, I was still standing there, holding the broken headlight in my hand. I couldn't even speak.
Without asking a single question, the man began beating me mercilessly. People tried to intervene, but he pulled out a pistol and threatened to shoot anyone who came closer.
He forced me into his car and drove straight to the police station.
That was when I realized he was a police officer.
He ordered his men to lock me in a cell.
They obeyed.
I spent the entire night in detention with nothing to eat. The following morning, the only food we received was a loaf of bread shared among everyone in the cell.
Back at home, evening came.
My father waited for me.
My mothers waited for me.
My brothers and sisters waited for me.
The sugarcane wheelbarrow never returned.
As darkness fell, they began searching.
They searched the streets.
They searched the markets.
They searched hospitals.
They searched police stations.
They searched everywhere they could think of.
Nobody had seen me.
Nobody knew where I was.
Around 10 a.m. the next day, one police officer asked,
"Who is this little boy?"
A woman at the counter replied,
"Oga said we should keep him there."
Another officer responded,
"Who are you to question Oga?"
One week passed.
Then two weeks.
Then one month.
I kept asking myself, Has this man forgotten me?
I tried speaking to the officers on duty, but no one paid attention.
I was barely 13 years old.
Every night I cried, tasting the bitterness of life at an age when I should have been in school with my friends.
Outside those prison walls, my family never stopped looking for me.
My father spent what little money he had searching.
My mothers wept every day.
My brothers and sisters traveled from place to place, asking questions and following every rumor.
Whenever someone claimed to have seen a boy matching my description, they rushed there with hope.
Every lead ended in disappointment.
Weeks became months.
Months became years.
Eventually, people began telling my family to accept that I was dead.
Some believed I had been kidnapped.
Some said I must have been murdered.
No one imagined that I was alive, locked away in prison without trial.
After years of searching without a trace, my family had no choice but to stop looking.
Not because they stopped loving me...
But because they had exhausted every hope.
To them, I had simply vanished from the face of the earth.
The pain shattered my parents.
It shattered my siblings.
Birthdays came and went.
Ramadan came and went.
Sallah came and went.
Family celebrations continued with one empty space that could never be filled.
My name slowly became a painful memory.
After one month, some officers gathered a group of us and took us to court.
The court did not sit that day.
One officer simply said,
"Let's take them on remand."
That was how I ended up in Maiduguri Prison.
One year passed while I remained on remand.
Later, I was assigned to the prison laundry section.
After two years, I was transferred out of Maiduguri. I didn't even know where I was being taken until another inmate told me,
"We're in Bauchi."
By then, I was already 15 years old.
You never know when they'll transfer you.
One morning they simply wake you up, put you in a vehicle, and move you to another state.
From Bauchi, I was transferred from one prison to another across the East and the West, almost like someone serving in the armed forces.
My final stop before returning to the North was Ibadan Prison.
From there, I was transferred to Kano State Prison.
By then, I was already 60 years old.
Inside the prison, everyone knew me as "Baba."
I was well known.
Yet no one believed my story.
Behind prison walls, everyone assumes you're a criminal.
Then, at the age of 60, God remembered me.
Near the end of his eight-year tenure, a governor came to visit the prison.
As he walked through the yard, his eyes stopped on me.
"Baba, come here," he called.
"How old are you, and what brought you here?"
Tears rolled down my face.
My heart was swollen with pain, bleeding from decades of silence and loneliness.
For the first time in 47 years, someone was asking the question that should have been asked the day I was arrested.
"I am 60 years old," I replied quietly.
"I came here when I was 13."
The entire prison fell silent.
Prisoners shouted in disbelief.
Prison officials were stunned.
Even the governor broke down in tears.
I told him everything.
How I accidentally damaged the police officer's car.
How I was thrown into a cell.
How I was forgotten.
How I was moved from prison to prison for decades.
Even condemned armed robbers, standing in shackles, trembled as they listened.
An investigation was immediately launched.
The findings were shocking.
The police officer who had locked me away all those years earlier was no longer in the police.
He had become a king—a respected and powerful traditional ruler.
The governor personally took me in his official car, still wearing my prison uniform.
The prison warders wanted me to change into civilian clothes before we left.
The governor refused.
"No," he said. "Leave him exactly as he is."
When we arrived at the palace and our eyes met, the monarch lowered his head.
He turned to the governor and said,
"Will God ever forgive me?" inquired the Emir who broke into tears."
Many wealthy people believe money can fix everything.
It cannot.
He stole my youth.
He stole my future.
He stole my entire life.
He didn't just imprison me.
He imprisoned an entire family in endless grief.
My parents spent years wondering whether I was hungry or dead.
My brothers and sisters grew into adults without ever knowing what became of me.
Some of them died believing I had disappeared forever.
I lost contact with my family.
There was no one left to trace.
I became like a stranger in the world—an alien with no mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters.
I had a family once.
Someone stole my identity.
The monarch stood up, held my shoulder, and said,
"I will build you a house. I will marry a wife for you. I will give you everything you want."
I looked at him and replied,
"I don't need a house.
I don't need a wife.
Prison is the only life I know.
At this age, what kind of life do you want me to start?
Marriage?
Children?
What future do I have left?"
He lowered his head again.
Then I said to him,
"In this life and in the next, I will never forgive you."
One of his guards, dressed in a red babariga, attempted to flog me with a koboko.
Others immediately restrained him, and he received the greatest humiliation of his life.
After saying my final words, I walked out of the palace and waited outside for the governor.
I was eventually granted amnesty.
The governor did everything he could to help me rebuild my life.
He even opened a provision shop for me.
Today, I am 78 years old.
I am alive.
Happy birthday to me. 🎂
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