Prof Solomon Tarfa, who was imprisoned on forgery charges by a Kano High Court, was discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal on Friday.
Tarfa’s incarceration and subsequent appeal was the second time the Kano State Government had prosecuted him for running a Christian orphanage in the state in 22 years.
Tarfa was similarly charged and convicted of running a bogus orphanage by a mobile magistrate court in 2000. The conviction was later overturned on appeal.
On Christmas Day 2019, Kano State arrested and charged him for the same offense, in violation of the principle of double jeopardy.
According to the presiding justice of the Court of Appeal, Kano, Justice Mbaba, the evidence of a grown former orphan at DuMerci was helpful to the appeal.
He said: “I believe that was the evidence that formed the basis on which the charges of abduction and kidnaping against the appellant were dismissed, as the evidence of the prosecution, rather presented the appellant as a man on the role of honour and fame, instead of infamy, in my opinion.”
The judge concluded thus: “I set aside the conviction of the appellant, and hold that this case was very unfortunate, going by the evidence of PW1, I cannot understand why it was taken out, in the first place, against the appellant. Appellant is hereby discharged and acquitted of the said charge.”
“This was an outstanding verdict from the Court of Appeal,” said international human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe, who was part of a global advocacy effort for Prof Tarfa. The court correctly noted that this was an honorable man performing humanitarian acts, and as I previously stated, this case should never have been brought against him.
“At a time when paid professors were on strike for better conditions, Prof Tarfa had committed his life to cater for unwanted babies. Rather than receive a national honour, he was imprisoned on fake charges.”
He said further: “I commend my learned colleague Sunny Akanni and his team for a successful outing and urge Kano State to release the Christian orphans they took and Islamized in 2019.”
Ogebe added: “That notwithstanding I want to be clear that the US failed by not designating Nigeria a country of particular concern (CPC) for religious persecution when Kano State’s actions against Prof Tarfa amongst others prove that terrorists are not Nigeria’s only problem.
“It’s unfortunate that Prof Tarfa missed the wedding of one of the orphans he raised during his time in prison. I hope Kano State will stop the persecution.”
