Nigerian man serving 78-month prison term in US seeks Buhari’s intervention

 

A 36-year-old Nigerian, Olufolajimi Abegunde, who is currently serving a 78-month prison term in Tennessee, United States has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari, to intervene in what he described as his unfair imprisonment.

Abegunde, who was arrested on February 7, 2018 and jailed by Sherly Lipman, insisted that he was a victim of racism.

He was sent to West Tennessee Detention Facility and is currently at Reeves County Correctional Facility 3.

According to PUNCH, Abegunde, In a statement made available from his Memphis, Tennessee prison cell, appealed to the President to institute a commission of inquiry to investigate the circumstances that led to his incarceration.

He urged the Federal Government to put pressure on the US Government to embark on a re-trial without bias.

“My request today is simple. I have been contending with two major challenges for almost 60 months. The first challenge is that as absurd as it may sound, in the United States, there is no mechanism in place to hold Federal Prosecutors, and to a large extent FBI Agents accountable for egregious misconduct in general. That is why they have acted with this degree of impunity in my case. They hide behind what is called ‘qualified immunity’.

‘’The second challenge is what I refer to as the elephant in the room; people generally believe that for me and Ojo to have been investigated by the almighty FBI, and indicted through the efforts of federal prosecutors, then somehow, we must be guilty. These two factors have conspired to work against me since my arrest in 2018.”