As their first anniversary approached, Mubarak Bala and his wife, Amina, were overjoyed that they were expecting a son. But less than six weeks after his son was born and only eight months into their marriage, Bala was taken away from his family. Plainclothes officers came to his home to arrest him for insulting the prophet Muhammad before he could reunite with Amina, who resided in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja.

This was not the first time that he was targeted for his speech.  

The son of an Islamic scholar and a chemical engineer by training, Bala grew up in northern Nigeria. Though the country’s constitution bars the federal and state governments from adopting a state religion, Sharia (Islamic law) is recognized in several northern states, where most of Nigeria’s Muslim population resides. Bala, who began exploring religion in his youth, spoke openly about leaving Islam. He began advocating for freedom of religion in Nigeria and was particularly outspoken about the restrictive environment in his home state of Kano, which employs Sharia.

He also campaigned against blasphemy laws, educated others about human rights, and spoke out on the dangers of religious extremism. As Bala became one of the country’s most prominent critics of religion, he began receiving death threats. In 2014, his family conspired to drug, beat, and forcibly commit him to a psychiatric ward, claiming that his atheism was a sign of a personality disorder.

Bala was released after a two-week stay, only to face continued threats to his safety and accusations of apostasy for his decision to break from Islam, even though states using Sharia law do not label it as an offense in their penal codes. After remaining in hiding, he fell in love and decided to stay in Nigeria, moving to the secular Kaduna State. He became president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, advocating for freedom of belief and for atheists’ rights.

In April 2020, Bala was arrested by plainclothes officers in Kaduna over Facebook comments that allegedly insulted the prophet Muhammad. He was transferred back to Kano.

The case against Bala was riddled with procedural irregularities from the very beginning. He was held without charge for more than a year and denied access to medical care and to his legal team, during a time when Nigeria’s constitutional promise of religious freedom was severely undermined. The Federal High Court in Abuja ruled Bala’s arrest unconstitutional that December and ordered authorities to bail him. Any hope that the ruling would set him free faded, however, as the court’s order was ignored.

When the trial finally concluded in April 2022, Bala received a severe and disproportionate 24-year prison sentence from the Kano State High Court, which ignored his pleas for leniency. His case painfully demonstrated not only how pervasive religious repression is in Nigeria, but how ineffective institutions like the Federal High Court are in upholding constitutional protections.

The last thing Bala said to his wife on the phone was, “Amina, do not worry, I will be out, and we will make up for the lost years we have missed as a family. I will make it up for our son.”
Bala was finally released from prison in January 2025.