Original version

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

Heart and Soul

Documentaries

Religion & Ethics

Personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

The cost of being an Atheist in Nigeria

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service East Asia

Heart and Soul: The cost of being an atheist in Nigeria

Muburak

10/02/2023 GMT

The cost of being an atheist in Nigeria

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, The cost of being an atheist in Nigeria

When a Nigerian atheist criticises Islam online, he’s left facing 24 years in jail

When the Nigerian atheist Mubarak Bala criticises Islam online, it sparks a landmark legal case and leaves him facing 24 years in jail. Yemisi Adegoke reports.

When Mubarak Bala posts criticism of Islam on social media, it sparks a landmark legal case and leaves him facing 24 years in jail. Raised in a Muslim family, Mubarak is the son of an Islamic scholar in the religiously conservative Kano state. But in 2014, Mubarak renounces Islam and later becomes president of Nigeria’s Humanist Association, gaining a reputation as an outspoken critic of religion. 

In 2020, a group of Muslim lawyers call for him to be tried for offences related to blasphemy over social media posts which they say insult the Prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam. With access to Mubarak’s wife and lawyers, the BBC’s Yemisi Adegoke follows his case through the Nigerian court system, finding out what it tells us about freedom of belief in a country where religious tensions run deep. She talks to other Nigerian atheists as they follow Mubarak’s case and wrestle with the challenges of being open about their beliefs in a deeply religious society.

Presenter: Yemisi Adegoke 
Producers: Valeria Cardi and John Offord 
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno 
Editor: Helen Grady

(Photo: Mubarak Bala speaking at Kaduna Book and Arts Festival in 2018, still from the film The Cost of Being an Atheist)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Heart and Soul

The cost of being an atheist in Nigeria

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

About BBC World Service