Baba had no idea that renting an apartment for a few days would change the direction of his life.
In 2021, he needed to conduct business in another part of Lagos, Nigeria. Rather than travel back and forth across the city, he arranged a short stay in an Airbnb-style apartment.
It was an ordinary decision.
He completed his stay and left.
According to Baba, a murder occurred in the neighboring apartment a day or two later. He says he did not know the victim, had never met him and had no connection to the crime.
But the victim was reportedly the owner of a media company, and the killing attracted significant attention.
Within weeks, Baba found himself at the center of a criminal investigation he says he had nothing to do with.
What followed would leave him fearing for his life, confronting his understanding of faith and eventually writing a book with a title that captures how he came to interpret the experience:
How God Arrested Me.
When I spoke with Baba on The Redemption Project Podcast, I expected to hear the story of a man who said he had been falsely accused of murder.
That is part of his story.
But he was far more interested in telling me what happened inside him while he waited for freedom.
An Arrest Without Answers
Baba grew up in a relatively comfortable Nigerian family. He received much of his education in the United Kingdom, attending school in Scotland and studying at universities in Hull and Edinburgh.
He had opportunities, education and family connections.
He was accustomed to navigating the world with some measure of security.
Then, one evening in Lagos, that security disappeared.
About two or three weeks after the murder, Baba says he stepped outside his home in a gated residential estate to take a walk and use his phone.
Two men approached him.
They had a photograph.
They appeared to recognize his face, although Baba says they initially had the wrong first name.
Before he could understand what was happening, he was forced to the ground and handcuffed.
Residents and security personnel challenged the men. According to Baba, weapons were produced, and the crowd backed away.
In the confusion, he managed to pass his phone to a resident, who contacted his girlfriend and father.
That may have been one of the most important things he did that evening.
At least someone knew he had been taken.
Baba says the men did not initially tell him why he was being arrested. They placed him inside a vehicle with darkened windows and drove away.
He feared he was being kidnapped.
Nigeria has experienced serious problems involving kidnapping and ransom demands, and Baba says he had no immediate way to distinguish what was happening to him from the stories he had heard.
He began pleading for his life.
He even offered money.
Only after arriving at a police station did he learn that the authorities were questioning him about a murder.
Investigators showed him a news clipping concerning the killing.
The location was familiar.
It was the apartment building where he had stayed.
Suddenly, an ordinary lodging decision had become the apparent connection between Baba and a homicide investigation.
He asked for a lawyer and resisted pressure, as he describes it, to provide a written statement without legal counsel.
Then he was locked up.
The First Night
Baba’s description of his first night in detention was difficult to hear.
He recalled entering a crowded room where people were sleeping on top of one another.
There was little space.
Rats moved through the area.
The smell of urine and human waste filled the room.
He said he spent much of that first night standing against a wall, unable to sleep, trying to understand how his life had reached this point.
This was not the life he recognized.
He had grown up with advantages.
He had studied abroad.
He had family members working to secure his release.
Now he was in a cell with people accused of serious crimes, uncertain about what would happen next.
He was also frightened by what he had heard about the treatment of detainees at the facility. In our conversation, Baba alleged that people could disappear from custody, particularly when no one outside knew where they were.
Those claims were part of his account and have not been independently established for this article.
But whether the danger he feared would actually materialize or not, his terror was real.
He did not know when he would leave.
He did not know what authorities would do.
And he did not know whether his family’s resources could protect him.
Then he began reading a Bible.
When Every Connection Seems Powerless
Baba had been a Christian long before his arrest.
He told me he committed his life to Christ when he was about 10 years old and had maintained some level of prayer and belief throughout his life.
But he made an important distinction.
He had known about God.
He had not always surrendered the direction of his life to God.
Inside the cell, those two realities began to collide.
He started reading the Psalms.
He reflected on the people he knew, the opportunities he had enjoyed and the influence his family might be able to exercise.
Yet he increasingly felt that none of those connections could determine when he would be released.
He described sensing a message in his heart: His release would happen in God’s time, not simply because he knew the right people.
He also believed he had a purpose inside the detention facility.
That was not the answer he wanted.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted the accusation resolved.
He wanted to return to the life he understood.
Instead, he began confronting something far more personal.
His pride.
His dependence on circumstances he thought he could control.
And his reluctance to surrender when the outcome was uncertain.
I have heard many stories of people encountering God during incarceration. Some were serving sentences for crimes they acknowledged committing. Others were struggling with circumstances they believed were unjust.
What interested me about Baba’s experience was that he did not describe his faith merely as a way of getting through the confinement.
He believed God was asking him to do something while he was there.
Worshipping Beside Men He Had Already Judged
At some point during his detention, Baba says he was moved from the severely overcrowded general holding area to a smaller section.
There, he encountered a Christian fellowship.
He described a system in which detainees’ names, numbers and alleged offenses were called aloud.
It meant he had some idea of what the men around him had been accused of doing.
One young man particularly disturbed him.
Baba recalled being told that the man had committed multiple killings.
Yet when Baba entered the fellowship, he saw that same man worshipping, praying and seeking God’s forgiveness.
He struggled with what he was witnessing.
How could someone accused of such terrible acts stand beside him and ask for the same mercy?
Was forgiveness really available to that man?
And if it was, what did that say about Baba’s own understanding of grace?
He began realizing that he was evaluating the people around him according to the crimes associated with their names.
He had placed himself in a different moral category.
He believed he was innocent of the charge against him, but he also recognized that innocence of a particular criminal accusation did not make him morally perfect.
The distinction changed his perspective.
Christianity teaches that human beings fall short of God’s standard and that grace is not earned through a comparison of who has committed the worst offense.
That does not eliminate accountability.
It does not erase the suffering of victims.
It does not make every act equally harmful.
But it does challenge the assumption that some people are beyond the reach of repentance and mercy.
Baba told me this encounter forced him to reconsider how he saw the men around him.
Rather than looking down on them, he began joining them in fellowship.
And soon, he would be asked to lead.
The Unexpected Prison Preacher
Baba had not entered detention intending to become a preacher.
He did not consider himself qualified.
But he began participating in the fellowship, reading Scripture and offering prayers.
The man leading the group eventually gave him more responsibility.
Then, according to Baba, that man was released.
Before leaving, he handed over his notes and told Baba to take over.
Suddenly, Baba was responsible for leading the very fellowship he had initially approached with uncertainty.
He remembered turning to 1 Corinthians 13, the biblical passage about love.
It was an appropriate place to begin.
The chapter describes love as patient and kind, rejecting pride, resentment and self-interest.
Those are challenging instructions under ordinary circumstances.
Inside a detention cell, surrounded by people with vastly different histories and facing his own uncertain future, the teaching carried a different weight.
Baba began preaching and leading conversations about Scripture.
He also described friendships with Muslim detainees, including an imam, and conversations about prayer and faith across religious differences.
He believed the experience was transforming his understanding of compassion.
He was no longer simply waiting for someone outside to solve his problem.
He was being asked to serve people inside the same difficult circumstances.
The Hardest Part Was Waiting
One of Baba’s observations stayed with me.
The hardest part of confinement, he said, was the waiting.
A person awaiting trial waits for answers.
A person serving a sentence waits for release.
A person facing an uncertain accusation waits without knowing which outcome is coming.
Time becomes something different when you have no control over what happens next.
Baba described lawyers and family members visiting him and offering encouraging updates.
He was told progress was being made.
He was given expectations about when he might leave.
Yet he remained in custody.
He wrestled with the frustration of believing that God had a purpose for him while desperately wanting that purpose to end.
That struggle is familiar far beyond a jail cell.
People wait for medical results.
They wait for reconciliation.
They wait for employment.
They wait for a child to come home.
They wait for an answer to a prayer they have repeated so often that the words themselves begin to feel worn down.
Waiting does not always produce clarity.
Sometimes it exposes how much we want control.
For Baba, surrender became less about confidently predicting when he would be released and more about how he would live while he did not know.
He continued reading Scripture.
He continued leading fellowship.
He continued reflecting on what he believed God wanted him to learn.
And eventually, his legal situation changed.
Freedom, but Not a Simple Ending
The final portion of Baba’s account was difficult to reconstruct in places because of interruptions and audio problems during our recorded conversation.
He described significant confusion surrounding his case, including disagreements about legal representation and events surrounding a court appearance.
He ultimately said he was not convicted and was released.
However, the interview did not provide complete court records, the precise legal disposition of the murder allegation or a sufficiently clear procedural timeline to independently establish how the matter was resolved.
That distinction is important.
Baba maintains that he did not know the murder victim and had no involvement in the killing.
His account deserves to be presented accurately as his account, without turning unverified allegations concerning the victim, investigators or other individuals into established findings.
What can be said from the conversation is that Baba emerged from detention with an understanding of his life that had changed considerably.
He described continuing to experience fear and uncertainty after his release.
He also began trying to write about what had happened.
Initially, he struggled to find the right approach.
He drafted several versions of the story.
Something did not feel right.
Then, he said, he began writing less about the external machinery of the criminal case and more about the internal transformation he had experienced.
The waiting.
The surrender.
The pride.
The lessons about faith and love.
The people he had met.
And the spiritual struggle between wanting control and accepting uncertainty.
That became the foundation of his book.
How God Arrested Me
The title of Baba’s book is deliberately provocative.
How God Arrested Me.
Police officers had physically taken him into custody.
But Baba believes God used that confinement to confront parts of his life he had not willingly surrendered.
The book, he explained, is not primarily intended to provide a detailed legal reconstruction of the murder investigation.
It is about what was happening inside him.
It is about the thoughts he wrestled with, the Scripture he studied, and the spiritual lessons he believes emerged from an experience he would never have chosen.
That is an important distinction.
He did not describe his detention as pleasant or just.
He did not suggest that wrongful incarceration should be celebrated because someone might discover a spiritual benefit.
Instead, he described finding purpose during circumstances he considered terrifying and undeserved.
As Christians, we should be careful not to confuse those ideas.
God can work through suffering without making the suffering itself righteous.
A person can grow spiritually during injustice without the injustice becoming acceptable.
And redemption does not require us to dismiss the harm that happened along the way.
Baba’s testimony is not proof that every painful circumstance will end with freedom or a satisfying resolution.
It is his account of how he encountered God while facing a future he could not control.
What Redemption Looks Like When the Accused Says He Was Innocent
Many of the guests on The Redemption Project have stories involving addiction, incarceration, violence or decisions that caused profound harm.
Their journeys often involve accepting responsibility for what they did.
Baba’s testimony is different.
He says he was innocent of the murder allegation.
So the central question is not whether he repented of that crime.
It is what happened to his faith, his assumptions and his understanding of other people while he was imprisoned.
That difference matters.
Redemption is not limited to people who have committed crimes.
Sometimes it is about a person whose confidence collapses under circumstances beyond his control.
Sometimes it is about learning that your social standing cannot guarantee security.
Sometimes it is about discovering compassion for people you previously would have judged.
And sometimes it is about finding a way to serve others when you are desperately waiting for someone to help you.
Baba entered detention wanting answers.
He left believing he had received something he had not expected.
Not simply freedom, but a different understanding of surrender.
The God Who Meets Us in Unwanted Places
I have spent much of my professional life around the criminal justice system.
I know that incarceration is not romantic.
Cells are not abstractions.
Accusations have consequences.
And decisions made by investigators, prosecutors, judges and attorneys can alter lives permanently.
That is one reason I believe stories like Baba’s require both compassion and care.
We can listen to his testimony without pretending to know every fact of the criminal investigation.
We can take his spiritual experience seriously without claiming independent knowledge of divine intervention.
We can also recognize something deeply human in his account.
He was afraid.
He wanted his family.
He wanted answers.
He wanted to go home.
But while he waited, he began seeing the people around him differently.
He began reading Scripture with greater attention.
He began participating in a fellowship he never imagined joining.
He was asked to lead when he did not believe himself ready.
And he came away convinced that faith was not simply something he possessed.
It was something he needed to live.
That is the distinction I keep returning to.
There is a difference between knowing the language of faith and depending upon it when everything familiar has been stripped away.
Baba says his experience forced him to confront that difference.
His story does not suggest that every question has been answered or every injustice resolved.
It suggests something more modest, and perhaps more meaningful.
Even in places we never wanted to enter, our lives are not necessarily without purpose.
For Baba, the authorities made an arrest.
He believes God used the experience to reach his heart.
And when he finally returned home, the story he most wanted to tell was not simply how he got out.
It was what changed before he did.
Listen to the Full Conversation
This article is adapted from The Redemption Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 29, featuring Baba, author of How God Arrested Me.
In the episode, we discuss his arrest in Lagos, his detention experience, the Christian fellowship he joined, the role of Scripture and prayer, his eventual release and how he came to write his book.
Book: How God Arrested Me — the guest stated during the interview that the book was available on Amazon.
The Redemption Project explores redemption, accountability, faith and the people whose stories remind us that life’s most difficult chapters do not always have the final word.
I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I founded The Redemption Project, as a place to focus on civics, rebuild non-partisan trust, and provide educational and emotional grace while learning about the news. I also have a column in Knox TN Today. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in other outlets including; Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.
Sources
The Redemption Project Podcast, Season 2, Episode 29 — interview transcript provided for this article.
How God Arrested Me — book discussed by the guest during the interview; publication details and product link require confirmation.
