Olusola Babatunde, the final year student of Ladoke Akintola University and social media influencer who was arrested for creating a parody Twitter account of former President, Goodluck Jonathan has been released after spending 82 days in detention.
Media personality and Convener of #RevolutionNow protest, Omoyele Sowore announced his release via Twitter. He tweeted;
#FreeShola has just been released from @PoliceNG detention in Abuja after more than 2 months for creating a parody account in the name of ex-President @GEJonathan, the former Pres. has also agreed to discontinue the bogus criminal trial. G-thanks to all! #RevolutionNow
Recounting his experience while in detention, Olusola said;
“There was no social distancing in detention. I guess the people in the cells are exceptional. It is like COVID-19 doesn’t infect them and this is despite the fact that new suspects are brought in every day without testing.
“However, we had an incident just once. There was a Chinese man who was a gold miner who fell ill. He was taken to a hospital and tested positive for COVID-19, so he was hurriedly released.
“He was in the Force Intelligence Bureau department so only the suspects in that cell were tested. We were all at risk of getting infected with COVID-19.
“It wasn’t easy. I spent 82 days in detention, and I was transferred to three different cells. I wore the same clothes for 82 days.”
The student who expressed disappointment that he was arrested despite being one of Goodluck Jonathan’s biggest supporters, added;
“The funny thing is that I even tweeted good things about Goodluck Jonathan a few weeks before my arrest. I said Jonathan’s administration was better than that of the current president. So, I was shocked but this is Nigeria.”
When asked if he was still a fan of Jonathan, Olusola jokingly said “May God help us.”
