How 26-year-old photographer spent 10 months in prison for resigning job via SMS in Abuja

A 26-year-old photographer, Peter Nicholas, has narrated how he was arrested and spent 10 years at Keffi Correctional Centre after he resigned his employment with an Abuja-based photography studio owned by the notable businessman Mike Oluwole via a text message.

Nicholas is a graduate of Mass Communication from Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic.

The young Nigerian was reportedly arrested for “intentional insult” of his boss, Oluwole, in the text message communicating his resignation.

According to Nicholas, “The message I sent on 10 October 2023 stated that I was no longer interested in working with him.

“To further explain my reason for resigning, I sent another text on October 14, advising him to learn leadership and management skills because of how he humiliated a colleague who collected N125,000 from a client into his personal account since the customer couldn’t pay into the company’s account.

“The colleague was arrested, molested by the police, and eventually taken to their station despite reimbursing the company. After that, I lost interest in working at his studio. No staff member had ever stayed there for more than three months, though the customers weren’t aware. On October 15, he had me arrested for insulting him.”

An Abuja-based foundation which helped secured his release noted that “From spending 2 days in police detention, he ended up being charged for “intentional insult”, locked up & up in a room with 189 other cell mates at a prison in Keffi because he could not afford the bail sum initially N100,000 & later N50,000.

“He remained there even after the said boss, a politician in the current administration & owner of a popular photography studio in FCT wrote a letter to the court withdrawing the charge.”

On the help by the boss in securing his release, Nicholas said he reached out to him (Oluwole) to help him out “but he could only send N20,000, which wasn’t enough to meet the N50,000 bail condition. When I reached out to him, he said the warder had previously told him it was N20,000 and that he wouldn’t send more than that.

“Before I was sent to prison, he also sent a letter to the court stating that he was no longer interested in the case, but it was rejected because it wasn’t properly dated.”