Biography:

Mubarak Bala is a self-identified atheist from Kano State in northeast Nigeria. He became well known in 2014 when the media reported that he had been forcibly drugged and committed to a psychiatric unit by his family members after telling them he was an atheist. He was released shortly thereafter and became an outspoken advocate for Nigerian atheist rights and freedoms. Until his arrest, Bala resided in Kaduna State, about 130 miles south of Kano, and served as the President of the Nigerian Humanist Association.

Bala was arrested on April 28, 2020, reportedly for a Facebook post in which he allegedly insulted Prophet Muhammad. The post reportedly read, “Fact is, you have no life after this one. You have been dead before, long before you were born, billions of years of death.” The arrest followed a petition by a group of lawyers to the Kano State Police Commissioner to prosecute Bala for posting things on Facebook that are “provocative and annoying to Muslims,” and a Change.org petition to close Bala’s Facebook account.

Kaduna State police, in response to a request from Kano State police, arrested Bala in his home in Kaduna State. He was then transferred to Kano State police custody, where he was held without charge for more than a year. In December, a federal court in the capital, Abuja, determined Bala’s detention unconstitutional and ordered authorities in Kano to either charge Bala with a crime under secular law or release him. In August 2021, a court charged Bala under customary law with 10 counts of causing a public disturbance in connection with “blasphemous” Facebook posts he is alleged to have made over the course of April 2020.

On April 5, 2022, the Kano State High Court sentenced Bala to 24 years in prison after convicting him of 18 counts of causing a public disturbance under Sections 210 and 114 of the Kano State Penal Code, respectively.

In January 2025, Bala was released.

Biography:

Yahaya Sharif-Aminu is a little-known Islamic gospel musician from Kano State, northern Nigeria. He belongs to the Tijaniyya order, a popular Sufi Islamic order across North and West Africa. Within the Tijaniyya, he belongs to what is sometimes called the Niassene Tijaniyya after a Senegalese shaykh named Ibrahim Niasse (1900-1975), who played a pivotal role in spreading and reviving the Tijaniyya from Senegal to Sudan.

Sharif-Aminu was accused of one count of insulting the religious creed, contrary to Section 382 (6) of the Kano State Sharia Penal Code Law of 2000, for a series of audio messages circulated via WhatsApp which became public knowledge in March 2020. The messages are said to have “praised an imam from the Tijaniya Muslim brotherhood (Ibrahim Niasse) to the extent it elevated him above the Prophet Muhammed.” Sharif-Aminu went into hiding following backlash for his recording, when protestors burned down his family home. He was subsequently arrested that same month.

On August 10, 2020, the Hausawa Filin Hockey upper-Sharia court found Sharif-Aminu guilty of blasphemy and sentenced him to death by hanging. He reportedly did not immediately deny the charges, although he has 90 days to repeal the conviction. It is reported that Sharif-Aminu had access to his lawyer, but that the trial was closed to the public. Since his conviction, it has been reported that Sharif-Aminu is being held in incommunicado detention with no access to legal representation and to his immediate family. In January 2021, a higher court in Kano state overturned Sharif-Aminu’s conviction and ordered his case to be retried due to irregularities in the original trial.