Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, the 22-year-old musician sentenced to death on Monday for blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad by a Shari’a court, is allegedly being held in solitary confinement.
He is said to be chained in an underground cell at the Kano Prison, a prison source told SaharaReporters on Wednesday.
He was accused of blaspheming Prophet Mohammed in a song he circulated through WhatsApp in March 2020 leading to protesters to burn down his family house.
A prison official said the singer is being kept in the worst possible condition.
“They have denied him visitors including his immediate family. He has been kept in a solitary confinement cell known as Back Cell at the Kano Central Prison. The cells are dark and underground.
“They boy may get infected where they are keeping him or exposed to cold. They have put a leg chain on him since he got in and he sleeps with the leg chain,” a prison official told SaharaReporters.
His sentencing had sparked outrage on social media with civil society organizations calling for his release.
The Socio-Economic Rights And Accountability Project asked the Nigerian Government to immediately quash the death sentence, saying it “amounts to a violation of the right to freedom of expression”.
