Kaduna — Hundreds of protesters under the aegis of National Youth Progressive Forum on Monday in Gusau, Zamfara State, staged a peaceful demonstration demanding the immediate release of Major Hamza El-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State General Sani Abacha, as well as Col. Jibrin Bala Yakubu, former Military Administrator of the state, Mr. John Danbaba, a Police Commissioner, and Rabo Lawal.

The demonstration, which had family members of the detainees in attendance, decried the situation as injustice and inhuman, the incarceration of the detainees for more than 11 years without a court conviction.

In a Voice of America Hausa report monitored in Kaduna, leader of the demonstrators, Isiyaku Musa Gusau, said, "We are doing this demonstration expressing our displeasure with the Federal Government of Nigeria. Now it is almost 11 years that they are still holding these Nigerians across various prisons...

"It is because of this that we all gather with our parents and other members of our families to call on the government to, without delay, free them because they have not been convicted and we don't understand the whole judicial process regarding their cases. We will proceed to the Sultan of Sokoto to present our complaints, and also continue with hunger strike until they are free".

Speaking on behalf of the detainees' families, Sarah James Danbaba, decried their parents' incarceration. She said, "We are suffering and this is a bad experience and precedent for the country. There is no person whose parents or relatives will be in detention for eleven years without clarity.

"There is no home that is in happiness without a father, for without a father no matter how a mother will raise a family without them there will be crisis and it is because of all these that we are begging government to free them".

Another woman protester, Hajiya Maimuna Badamasi, also said, "God is watching and what we are doing is the right thing. There is no just reason why they should be suffering in jail without conviction for eleven years".