By Oumar Farouk Sesay
Mr. President,
While Zainab Sheriff remains behind prison walls, her infant daughter is growing through life’s earliest months without her mother’s presence, comfort, and care.
Zainab was arrested on 20 February 2026 and, on 14 April 2026, sentenced by Pademba Road Magistrate Court No. 1 to four years and two months’ imprisonment for incitement and the use of threatening language arising from remarks made at an APC rally.
Although an appeal was filed on June 18, 2026, the process has moved painfully slowly. As the legal challenge remains unresolved, Zainab continues to lose irreplaceable time with her child and family.
This appeal is not intended to question the competence or independence of the judiciary. The courts must be respected, and the legal process must be allowed to proceed as it should. Yet respect for judicial authority should not prevent an urgent examination of whether Zainab’s appeal can be heard promptly and whether the continued loss of her liberty is proportionate to the circumstances of her case.
Behind the charge, the judgment, and the legal arguments lies a young woman whose life has been profoundly disrupted.
Zainab is a wife and mother to an infant daughter. While she remains incarcerated, her child is going through the most vulnerable early stage of life without her daily presence, comfort, and care. Her husband must cope with her absence while trying to maintain their family.
During her imprisonment, Zainab also lost her sister. She was forced to grieve behind prison walls, separated from her family at a time when they needed one another most. No later judgment can restore those lost moments of mourning, motherhood, and family life.
These circumstances do not place Zainab above the law, nor do they diminish the seriousness with which the court regarded the remarks attributed to her. They do, however, call for humane consideration of proportionality, compassion, and the irreversible consequences of prolonged imprisonment.
Mr. President, your administration has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to the protection, dignity, and advancement of women. Zainab’s case offers an opportunity to give practical meaning to that commitment—not by interfering with the courts, but by ensuring that a woman’s appeal is not rendered ineffective by delay and that every lawful avenue of mercy remains open.
We therefore respectfully request that your office support all lawful measures necessary to ensure the prompt hearing of Zainab Sheriff’s appeal. Her case should proceed without avoidable administrative or procedural delay so that the appellate court may decide it fairly and expeditiously.
Should the appeal remain unreasonably delayed, we further appeal to you to consider any constitutionally available form of clemency, remission, or compassionate relief, without prejudice to the judiciary’s authority and independence.
Mr. President, four years and two months is not merely a sentence recorded on paper. It is a daughter growing up without her mother, a husband living without his wife, and a grieving woman mourning her sister from a prison cell. It is time taken from a family that no future decision can ever fully restore.
Zainab is not asking for the law to be abandoned. She is asking for the opportunity to pursue her appeal without unnecessary delay and for justice to be administered humanely.
Please ensure her case receives the urgent, lawful, and compassionate attention it deserves.
Justice must command respect. But justice is strongest when it leaves room for mercy.