KUNLE AJIBADE: THE PRISON NOTES

Kunle Ajibade, a Nigerian journalist and editor of TheNEWS magazine, was given a life imprisonment in 1995 by the General Sani Abacha regime for publishing an article headlined “Not Guilty – Army Panel Clears Coup Suspects.”

The piece reported that military officers accused of a 1995 coup plot were innocent, challenging the military’s official narrative.

The article had claimed that a Special Investigation Panel (SIP) had found no evidence against suspects in a supposed c0up attempt, defying Abacha’s plan to purge his critics.

As a journalist, Ajibade was heavily involved in covering the fallout from the annulled 12 June 1993 election, placing him on the side of social justice against the rule of Abacha.

He was arrested and officially charged with being an accessory to treason for the story, which the regime claimed as “publishing of materials which could obstruct the work of the coup plotters tribunal” and “misleading the public.”

Ajibade’s life sentence was later reduced to 15 years. He was released three years after in 1998 following the demise of General Abacha. He documented this experience in his memoir, Jailed for Life: A Reporter’s Prison Notes.

Credit: Ethnic African Stories