A student in Nigeria has been charged with criminal defamation over a tweet he posted about the physical appearance of the country's first lady.
Aminu Adamu was arrested on November 18 in his university in northern Jigawa state after Aisha Buhari filed a complaint and was remanded into custody until January.
He walked free after she dropped the complaint against him on Saturday. Adamu met Buhari and apologised for his comments in a series of tweets. Students had called for demonstrations this week to protest Adamu's detention.
According to court documents, Adamu commented on a picture of Buhari on Twitter, suggesting she had embezzled money meant for the poor to their own satisfaction. It was not clear whether he had intended to make a joke or accuse her of corruption.
The 23 year-old student's detention sparked widespread outrage in Nigeria, which suffers a multitude of intractable economic and social problems that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has not been able to solve.
Aminu could have been in prison for up to two years if convicted, according to Nigeria's penal code.
Amnesty International had urged the authorities to release him after his family and friends said he was being held incommunicado and subjected to severe beating, torture and other forms of ill-treatment.
Amnesty said that the heavy-handed mistreatment of Aminu Adamu MuhammedAdamu Muhammed was a clear attempt to strike fear into the hearts of young Nigerians who use social media to hold the powerful to account.
Despite decades of military dictatorships, allegations of mistreatment against detainees are not uncommon in Africa, despite the fact that it has had a stable democracy since 1999.
President Buhari, a former army general who was elected in 2015 and 2019 as a civilian leader, is stepping down next year after two terms allowed by the constitution.
Buhari left behind mounting problems to his successor, from insecurity to an economy in shambles after he was elected on a promise to crack down on corruption. Under his watch, mass youth-led protests over police brutality and bad governance have been violently suppressed.