BREAKING: Nigerian Correctional Service Throws ‘Independence Day Bomber’ Charles Okah Into Solitary Confinement For Exposing Borno Prison Corruption; Denies Him Drugs, Family Access.
SaharaReporters learnt that this move is in retaliation for Okah’s exposure of corrupt practices involving some senior NCoS officers.
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has placed Charles Okah—who is serving a life sentence for his involvement in the October 1, 2010, Independence Day bombing in Abuja—in solitary confinement at the Maximum Security Custodial Centre in Maiduguri, Borno State.
SaharaReporters learnt that this move is in retaliation for Okah’s exposure of corrupt practices involving some senior NCoS officers.
Sources told SaharaReporters that Okah has also been denied access to his medication, family visits, and adequate food following his revelations about a corruption ring within the facility. The scheme allegedly facilitates the illegal release of convicted inmates at the Maiduguri centre
SaharaReporters can authoritatively report that the Borno State Command (BSC) of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) orchestrated threats against Charles Okah’s life in retaliation for his exposure of judicial fraud in two Borno State custodial centres.
This action followed Okah’s firm refusal to endorse a pre-written disclaimer aimed at discrediting SaharaReporters’ publication of his open letter to the Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.
Additionally, citing a fabricated threat to his life, the BSC has held Okah in solitary confinement since March 16, 2025.
The move—presented as “protective custody”—amounts to indefinite isolation, in violation of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, to which the NCoS is a signatory.
This is not the first time Charles Okah has been locked away indefinitely while serving his life prison sentence in Borno State.
On Friday, March 22, 2019, SaharaReporters published excerpts from Okah’s article entitled “Sodomy of Children in Maiduguri Prison: Nigeria and the ICRC Conspiracy of Silence,” exposing sexual abuse of children as young as eight years old allegedly affiliated to Boko Haram.
Consequent upon the damning report, Charles Okah was locked away in solitary confinement for one year and eight months.
SaharaReporters also on March 14, 2025, reported that in a letter addressed to the Minister of Interior, Tunji-Ojo, Okah alleged that senior NCoS officers at the Baga Road Maximum Security Custodial Centre in Maiduguri, in collusion with corrupt members of the Borno State judiciary, had been forging and altering conviction warrants to unlawfully release inmates.
Okah had revealed that this scheme allowed numerous prisoners to evade justice, securing early release without serving their full sentences.
Meanwhile as a result of his exposé, the NCoS has clamped Okah in solitary confinement for several weeks.
“In this second wave of the so-called “protective custody” where temperatures can soar as high as 45 degrees Celcius, Charles has been denied all the basic human rights.
“He has been denied opportunity to engage in his routine daily physical exercise; he has been denied access to his books; while medicines prescribed by the Medical Officer, Assitant Controller Charles Medugo have since been suspended; even as he has not been allowed to have his own special diet based on doctors orders. Instead, he has been living on biscuits and water.
“Above all, Okah has been denied access to his family who have made futile efforts to establish contact with him,” a top source revealed to SaharaReporters.
Following Okah’s exposé, several inmates who paid for forged release warrants are now demanding refunds from corrupt officials.
Two convicted armed robbers, whose families had reportedly transferred large sums to the bank account of Assistant Superintendent Umar—a key facilitator of the scheme at the Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre (MaSCC)—have reportedly recovered half of the money they paid.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of an expected visit from external investigators, frantic efforts are being made to tamper with evidence in the record files of beneficiaries of the fraud in both MaSCC and Minimum Security Custodial Centre (MiSCC) Maiduguri.
Sources told SaharaReporters that Abdullahi Mbaya, the immediate past Controller of the Borno State Command (BSC) of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), under whose watch many of the alleged abuses occurred, is reportedly playing a key role in obstructing justice from his new post at the NCoS national headquarters in Abuja, where he now serves as an Assistant Comptroller General.
Sources reveal that Mbaya has been issuing questionable directives to Mohammed Ali Kida, the Officer-in-Charge of the Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre (MaSCC), aimed at derailing ongoing efforts to uncover corruption. Fortunately, some of these efforts have been documented—secret recordings and photographs of forged warrants have reportedly been secured as evidence.
According to sources, corrupt officials within the BSC, including the current Comptroller Ibrahim Bawa; MaSCC head M.A. Kida; and the reinstated Chief Warder, Adamu Potiskum—who was previously exposed by Okah in 2019 for extorting inmates for bed space—have allegedly vowed that Charles Okah will remain imprisoned indefinitely unless he agrees to their demands.
They further reportedly boasted that they would deny Okah the opportunity of recommendation for Presidential Pardon as required by the Presidential Prerogative of Mercy Committee (PPMC).
After being granted permission to speak following his request, Charles Okah calmly responded: “To remain silent in the face of evil is a form of evil in itself. I have long taken my stand on high moral principles and as such, no amount of persecution or threat of perpetual imprisonment can make me yield a fraction of my resolve.
“It is rather petty and unfortunate that my efforts at exposing corruption have been misconstrued by the NCoS and to warrant a veiled threat of giving a bad recommendation against me to the Presidential Prerogative of Mercy Committee. Thankfully, my destiny is solely in the hands of God.”
According to Okah in his first letter, this fraudulent practice has persisted for years in both the Maximum and Minimum Security Custodial Centres in Maiduguri, operating under the Borno State Command of the NCoS.
Okah alleged that a wide-reaching illicit network operates within the correctional system, implicating key units such as the Records Office, Intelligence Office, Gate Office, and several senior prison officials—all of whom reportedly benefit financially from the scheme.
He said he stumbled upon the racket while trying to help a juvenile inmate pay a court-imposed fine. Instead of facilitating the legal process, an NCoS officer, M.K. Babagana, allegedly offered to secure the boy’s release for half the official fine amount.
According to Okah, he attempted to report the corruption to senior prison authorities following a leadership change in January 2025, but his concerns were disregarded. He claimed that, in an effort to create a façade of accountability, officials presented a single case to the judiciary, scapegoating three individuals—including an inmate who had paid for a reduced sentence.
He further stated that the forged warrant in that case was submitted to the judge only under pressure, as officials feared imminent exposure.
The letter had read, “Certain officers of the NCoS are aiding and abetting the escape of convicted prisoners from the Maximum Security Custodial Centre, Baga Road in Maiduguri, Borno State.
“Working with unscrupulous staff of the Borno State judiciary, conviction warrants of willing prison inmates are forged and replaced at the Maximum Security Custodial Centre’s Records Office. Several prisoners have used this corrupt and illegal route to walk out of the custodial centre without serving the prison sentence handed to them by the Judiciary.”
“In the Maximum Security Custodial Centre and the Minimum Security Custodial Centre, both in Maiduguri and under the Borno State Command (BSC) of the NCoS, this crime has been going on steadily and undetected for many years. The syndicated corruption begins at the office of the Officer in Charge and spreads to other departments namely, the Court Office, the Records Office, the Intelligence Office, the Gate Office, the Chief Warder, and the Yard Master, who all get their share from the crime,” he said.
Narrating how he accidentally discovered the alleged racket while trying to assist a boy, he said, “The boy was approached by one M.K. Babagana, an assistant superintendent and told that for half the amount of what I intended to pay the court, as fine, the boy would be released. How possible could this be? So, to enable me get an insight into the modus operandi of the fraud ring, I asked the lad to play along.
“In January 2025, when a new set of officers took over the helm of affairs in the BSC headquarters and the custodial centres, I sought for an urgent appointment with the zonal coordinator, the controller and the officer in charge of the Maximum Security Custodial Centre Maiduguri (MaSCC) where I am currently serving a life sentence, to discuss this serious breach, all to no avail.
“But on learning through an informant that I had plans uncover the corrupt practice, proactive measures at damage control were taken in a panic.
“Three scapegoats had to be sacrificed on the altar of lies and deception. First on the list was an inmate, Abdullahi Idris alias ‘G9’. He had paid an undisclosed amount to have four months shaved off his sentence. His fake warrant was selected from amongst many other forged warrants because it had the lowest time reduced from a court sentence. The forged warrant was taken by the officer in charge of MaSCC, deputy controller, Mohammed Ali Kida to High court 10 where Mr Idris was tried and sentenced.
“Mohammed Kida’s mission of deception was to ‘confess’ the fraud to the Judge, Honourable Justice Aisha Ndume as though the NCoS had stumbled across a one-off fraud that had to be reported. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“The forged warrant was handed over to the Judge grudgingly by the NCoS who had no other choice with the threat of an imminent exposure looming.”
“The unsuspecting Judge was told that disciplinary measures had been taken against the NCoS staff involved, and her registrar, the second scapegoat was fingered as his accomplice,” Okah alleged.
He explained that Deputy Controller Kida conveniently forgot to mention to the Judge that only a few months before he met her, two men she had sentenced to 21 years in prison for engaging in “unnatural acts” (the euphemism for sodomy) with a little boy were free, thanks to the forged warrants they procured for N5 million naira each.
He said, “The men arrived at MaSCC on September 10 2024, after they were evacuated from the Minimum Security Custodial Centre (MiSCC) following the flood.
“To give a semblance of taking disciplinary measures against an erring staff, and protect their backs for the record, a sham Orderly Room Trial was conducted on Friday, 7 February 2025 in the MaSCC administrative building, with the Controller, BSC, Ibrahim Bawa adjudicating.”
Okah in the letter identified the third scapegoat as Mustapha Imam, aka Vice. He said he was merely transferred to another station to serve as punishment for a “very serious offence”.
He mentioned that the orderly room proceedings did not address the past and ongoing issue of forged warrants in various courts, which has led to convicts disappearing without a trace from a maximum security facility.
He said, “It is a travesty of justice and a mockery of the Borno State judicial system that the very serious crime of altering already pronounced sentences and fines without the Judges’ consent or without following the due appellate process can be treated with such levity by the NCoS, when for lesser crimes, accused persons are prosecuted and brought to book.”
“The immediate-past officers in charge of MaSCC and MiSCC, Aminu Bappa and Usman Tahir have questions to answer.”
“Honourable Minister Sir, I urge that thorough investigation be conducted into this matter of national and international importance. Those found culpable should be brought to book,” Okah added.
