Lawyers urge Nigerian Supreme Court to hear case of young musician who nears seventh year in prison on blasphemy charge
- Lawyers for Yahaya Sharif-Aminu submit letter to the Court, renewing their previous request for an accelerated hearing of his appeal.
- Sharif-Aminu has been imprisoned since March 2020 under charges of “blasphemy”; ADF is providing legal support to his case.
ABUJA (25 SEPTEMBER 2026) — Lawyers for Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a young Sufi musician who has spent more than six and a half years in prison facing a death sentence for alleged blasphemy, have renewed their call on the Supreme Court of Nigeria to restore his case to its cause list and set an accelerated hearing date without further delay.
The Court had previously scheduled a hearing for 25 June 2026, at which it was expected to schedule a date for oral arguments, but abruptly canceled the hearing with no new date in sight.
In a letter dated 14 September 2026, Sharif-Aminu’s lawyers addressed the Chief Justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court, urging the court to assign a hearing date to the case as soon as possible, stating, “The Court may accelerate a hearing and depart from ordinary listing and briefing arrangement where the interest of justice so requires. Those powers exist so that a case of this character is not lost in an undifferentiated queue.” The letter notes that other criminal appeals filed later than Sharif-Aminu’s have been scheduled for the current Court session and that all briefing has been completed for the case.
The letter concludes that “further unexplained delay in listing a 2022 capital constitutional appeal, while later-filed matters proceed, will be treated internationally as evidence that the collision between State Sharia penal provisions and the [Nigerian] Constitution is being postponed rather than decided. That impression harms Nigeria’s standing as a constitutional democracy under the rule of law.”
“Yahaya has spent over six-and-a-half years of his young life in prison — not for any violent crime, but simply for writing song lyrics. The Court has continued to stall in hearing his case, delaying what could be a decision that not only frees Yahaya, but overturns the blasphemy laws in the country, which for years have suffocated religious freedom and endangered minority Muslims like Yahaya, Christians and others across Nigeria.
No one should ever face a death sentence and years in a prison cell for nothing more than peacefully expressing religious ideas. It’s time for the Court to act — for Yahaya’s sake, and in the interest of establishing real, lasting protection for religious freedom in Nigeria.”
— Sean Nelson, Senior Counsel for Global Religious Freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)
Background
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was arrested in March 2020 after sharing song lyrics he had written via WhatsApp. His lyrics were deemed “blasphemous”, and a mob subsequently burned down his family’s home. He was convicted by a Sharia court in Kano State in a rushed trial without proper legal representation, and he was sentenced to death by hanging in August 2020. The following year, the Kano State High Court overturned the conviction on procedural grounds but ordered a retrial under the same charges. Sharif-Aminu has remained in prison throughout, still facing the possibility of execution.
Sharif-Aminu appealed his case to the Supreme Court of Nigeria in November 2022. The Nigerian Supreme Court held its first hearing in the case in September 2025, allowing the appeal challenging the constitutionality of Nigeria’s blasphemy laws to proceed. A ruling in Sharif-Aminu’s favor could set a precedent overturning blasphemy laws across northern Nigeria.
“Yahaya’s case demonstrates what blasphemy laws do to religious minorities such as Yahaya across northern Nigeria — they take peaceful expression of religious ideas and punish it. A young man’s life is on the line for nothing more than song lyrics, and the longer his case is delayed, the longer Yahaya languishes in prison and these laws remain in place, putting others at risk of the same fate. The Court must prioritize this case now.” — Nigerian international human rights lawyer Kola Alapinni, lead counsel for Yahaya Sharif-Aminu
Kano State officials have stated they intend to carry out a public execution should the Supreme Court instead rule against him.
Sharif-Aminu’s case has drawn international attention. The European Parliament has adopted urgency resolutions calling for his immediate and unconditional release on two separate occasions — a rare occurrence that underscores the gravity of the situation. In December 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion finding that Nigerian authorities had violated multiple internationally-protected human rights in Sharif-Aminu’s case, and called for his immediate release and reparations.
In April 2025, the West African ECOWAS Treaty Court relied upon Yahaya Sharif-Aminu’s case in holding that Nigeria’s blasphemy laws should be repealed. Most recently, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Nazila Ghanea, highlighted Kano State’s blasphemy law as a “departure [] from fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution,” in a statement following her June 2026 country visit to Nigeria.
The letter highlights the international attention drawn to Yahaya Sharif-Aminu’s case and further states: “On 31 October 2025 the United States designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern. Whatever view is taken of that designation, it now forms part of the official record against which Nigeria’s handling of religious-expression and blasphemy cases is measured.”
ADF continues to provide legal support in Sharif-Aminu’s case and advocates to end blasphemy laws in Nigeria and across the world.
