For what reasons or charges has well known lawyer, activist and writer, Comrade Abdul Mahmud, been sent to the Keffi Prison in Nasarawa State in central Nigeria? This is the question activists, lawyers and civil society players in the country are asking and pondering over.
The details are so sketchy at the time of reporting but Comrade Abdul is understood to have been remanded in Keffi Prison earlier today (Friday, February 27th, 2026. It is not confirmed but Intervention understands that a Senior Magistrate Court sitting at the Muhammadu Buhari International Market, Mararaba in Nasarawa State made the ruling.
The story has a founding moment in Barrister Abdul’s arrest on May 27th, 2023 for stopping DCP Amabua Muhammed from arresting a security officer at the Fatima Gold Estate, Mararaba without a warrant. The DCP was served a demand letter to pay her estate dues.
But at the time, Barrister Abdul was kept behind the counter at the Police Station at Abacha Road, near Abuja. On hearing of the arrest, a Principal Staff Officer to former IGP Egbetokun, intervened to order his release but with a request that Barr Abdul return on June 3rd, 2023. When he did on June 3rd, 2023, he was immediately arraigned but granted bail on self-recognisance.
How it developed into imprisonment earlier today on the reported orders of Magistrate Zuluhait Yusuf, is what remains unclear now. Intervention could not reach any lawyer immediately for further insight into what might have happened but Prof Chijioke Uwasomba, a leading activist and OAU, Ile-Ife academic is already calling for Barr Abdul’s release and allowance for rule of law.
Prof Uwasomba is reading meaning to imprisonment on a Friday as a plausibly calculated move to keep the lawyer in jail for an entire weekend. Barrister Mahmud Abdul, a lawyer of over 30 years in the bar, is a former president of the defunct National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).
