Some students of Shehu Shagari College of Education stoned and lynched Deborah Yakubu on May 12 for alleged blasphemy. Her body was set ablaze. After murdering her, the assailants chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is great). Deborah was accused of denigrating Islam on her class’ WhatsApp platform. After lynching and stoning her to death, two suspects, Bilyaminu Aliyu and Aminu Hukunci, were arraigned in court in connection with the murder. Violent protests followed the arrest leading to the imposition of a 24-hour curfew in Sokoto State by Governor Aminu Tambuwal. Upon the arraignment of the accused persons, 34 defence lawyers, led by Prof. Mansur Ibrahim, appeared for them.
The murder of Deborah raised many fundamental questions. For instance, is blasphemy a crime under a written law in Nigeria? Does the murder affect the freedom of expression of Nigerians? Is the extra-judicial killing justified under Nigerian legal system?
In view of the many instances of similar extra-judicial killings, is the Nigerian state living up to its obligation to save life? This piece will only address the last question.
The Nigerian constitution in section 33 which guarantees the right to life apparently imposes a negative obligation on the state not to take life. Right to life is also guaranteed under Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The question is whether section 33 and the above articles impose any positive obligation on the state and state agencies to act to save life. The European Commission on Human Rights held that a similar provision in the European Convention on Human Rights imposes obligations on states to take appropriate steps to safeguard life. This will, for instance, entail taking appropriate steps to promote security and to prevent murder and other crimes threatening life.
The right to life requires states not only to abstain from taking life but also to take positive steps to protect life. The United Nations Human Rights Committee observed that the expression “inherent right to life” cannot properly be understood in a restrictive manner and that the protection of this right requires that measures be undertaken to, among other things, increase life expectancy. The committee also considers that the right to life includes a duty to prevent wars, acts of genocide and other acts of mass violence causing arbitrary loss of life.
In SERAC & Anor v Federal Republic of Nigeria (2002) C.H.R. 537 at 554) the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights held that internationally accepted ideas of the various obligations engendered by human rights indicate that all rights – both civil and political and social and economic – generate at least four levels of duties for states that undertake to adhere to a rights regime, namely, the duty to respect, protect, promote and fulfill these rights. The obligations to respect entails that the state should refrain from interfering in the enjoyment of all human rights; it should respect right-holders, their freedoms, autonomy, resources, and liberty of their action. The state is obliged to protect right-holders against other subjects by legislation and provision of effective remedies. The obligation to protect is intertwined with the tertiary obligation of the state to promote the enjoyment of all human rights by promoting tolerance, raising awareness and even building infrastructures. The last layer of obligation requires the state to fulfill the rights and freedoms it freely undertook under the various human rights regimes. According to the commission, governments have a duty to protect their citizens, not only through appropriate legislation and effective enforcement but also by protecting them from damaging acts that may be perpetrated by private persons.
Similarly, the United Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms proclaims in Article 2 as follows:
‘Each state has a prime responsibility and duty to protect, promote and implement all human rights and fundamental freedoms, inter alia, by adopting such steps as may be necessary to create all conditions necessary in the social, economic, political and other fields, as well as the legal guarantees required to ensure that all persons under its jurisdiction, individually and in association with others, are able to enjoy all those rights and freedoms in practice’.
At the domestic level, section 14 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria proclaims that the security and the welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. When this provision is read together with section 33 which guarantees the right to life, they will imply a duty on the state to save life. Paul Sieghart pertinently observed that states have obligation to protect human rights through the rule of law (See The International Law of Human Rights). According to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the rule of law in relation to the executive organ of government implies that there must be an effective executive government capable of maintaining law and order (see the Declaration of Delhi 1959).
It is regrettable that the Nigerian state has failed woefully in her obligation to protect life. For some time now fatwa is being passed in Nigeria yet it has not yet been expressly criminalized. Where it has been executed, it amounts to commission of homicide by both the executors of the fatwa and those who passed the sentence, and should be treated as such.
- Ogbu is a professor of Law at the Enugu State University of Science & Technology.