Ibrahim Wala, popularly known as IG Wala has been freed from jail
IG Wala was released due to President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval for the release of 2,600 prison inmates across Nigeria, ElombahNews learnt.
An Abuja High Court had on 16 April 2019 sentenced Wala to 12 years in jail after being found guilty of gathering unlawful assembly and criminal defamation of character.
On 20 March 2020, the Court of Appeal in Abuja, reduced the jail term of the Nigerian activist, the appellate court reduced the jail term to two years.
Wala was arrested following a petition written by Mukhtar alleging public defamation of his integrity and the commission he heads via a Facebook post.
Delivering the ruling, Justice Yusuf Halilu ruled that Wala is guilty of three of the four charges brought against him by Abdullahi Mukhtar, Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON).
Mukhtar alleged that Wala used his Facebook page to incite the public against him and defamed his integrity and that of the commission he heads.
On September 26, 2017, Wala, convener of Citizens Action to Take Back Nigeria (CATBAN), had made a Facebook post accusing Mukhtar of corruptly enriching himself with N3billion after the 2017 Hajj.
“Official documents made available to CATBAN reveals that the Chairman of NAHCON, after the 2017 Hajj operations, makes not less than N3 billion for himself,” read a part of the post.
“In the interim, CATBAN tends to question how NAHCON expended the total sum of N97,906,500,000 (almost Hundred Billion) accrued from the payment of N1.5million by each individual that made up the 65,271 being the Total Number of Nigerian Muslim Pilgrims for 2017.”
