By Kingston Magare 9.8.2026
Charles Okah who is serving a life sentence at the Maiduguri Correctional Centre for his alleged involvement in the October 1, 2010, Abuja bomb blast has cried out to President Bola Tinubu to grant him pardon because of his failing health.
Okah’s only kidney according to him is failing having been locked in solitary conferment since 2024 for exposing official corruption in the Maiduguri Correctional Centre.
“I have been in solitary confinement for 501 days in Maiduguri prison. I am psychologically down. I am isolated from other inmates. I thought I was being a good citizen. I exposed what was happening, but up till now, they have kept me locked up.
“I was saying that some people were forging court warrants to release inmates. I exposed it to the Minister, and that is what has kept me locked up for over one year,” Okah told the Nation.
“My appeal to President Bola Tinubu is that he should release me now because I think I have a lot to offer this country outside prison than being in prison.”
“I don’t know if Mr. President can really look into my case. President Tinubu should pardon me.”
He pointed out that his fellow convict Edmund Ebiware bagged a pardon from President Muhammadu Buhari because of his failing health.
“My friend with a similar case was released by Buhari in 2022. Edmund Ebiware was in Sokoto Prison while I was here in Maiduguri Prison. He is free now. He is outside, although I have not spoken with him recently.”
On September 3, 2019, his lawyers had written to the Comptroller-General of Nigerian Correctional Service to remind the authorities of Okah’s health condition. Stating that Maiduguri Correctional Centre lacked the faculties that could address his health condition and moving him to Abuja or Lagos will help.
“Our client has been living on a single kidney for the past 37 years and this fact, without gainsaying, makes it imperative for constant medical attention which he has not been getting at the Maiduguri Maximum Prisons.
“While he was being held at the Kuje Prisons, he had access to medical experts at the National Hospital Abuja.
“More recently, our client has been experiencing uncontrolled hand tremor and has been passing blood in his urine. He also has developed other ailments that require urgent and expert medical review,” the letter read.
Okah and two others were sentenced in March 2018 by Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court after being arrested in October 2010. The case is currently on appeal.