They were arrested separately. But, the police came up with a theory to lump them together as partners in crime. Friday Saturday and Amen Daniel spent eight years in jail awaiting trial before they were rescued, reports PRECIOUS IGBONWELUNDU
They came to Lagos to eke out a living. They are from two neigbouring states in the Southsouth, which used to be one. Amen Daniel is from Ikon village in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State. Friday Saturday hails from Calabar in Cross River State.
But, to hang them, the police said they were both from Akwa Ibom.
Saturday was arrested at Oyingbo Market in 2006. He was selling puff-puff. Because he could not afford the alleged N5,000 “bribe” demanded by the police to secure his freedom, the only N700 he had was taken by his oppressors.
He was taken to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti, Yaba where he was tortured, wounded with electric iron and shot in his legs twice— just to coerce him to admit he was an armed robber. He was not offered medical care; other suspects held in detention with Saturday poured candle wax into the gunshot wounds as first aid.
After several weeks in police detention without being able to provide the N100, 000 allegedly demanded for his bail, Saturday was charged alongside Daniel, 30, whom he only knew on the day of their arraignment at a Yaba Magistrates’ Court.
Like Saturday, Daniel, who had his share of police brutality, was arrested in broad daylight on Lekki-Epe Expressway on his way to his mechanic’s workshop after assisting a client whose car broke down.
He, and three others had assisted the client push his car into a filling station and on his way back to his shop at about 12pm, he was stopped by a plain-clothed officer who forced him into a vehicle.
Unable to provide the N30,000 demanded by the policemen in Ajah, Daniel said he was threatened with being framed for armed robbery and would rot in prison.
Daniel was transferred from Ajah Police Station to SCID, Panti. Other suspects, who were arrested almost the same time as he, were released after their relatives paid “ransoms”.
Knowing that armed robbery is a capital offence which can only be tried at the High Court, the police took the victims to a Magistrates’ Court, secured remand order and dumped them in Ikoyi Prisons.
Like several other awaiting trial inmates, the victims were forgotten in custody. They prayed day and night, hoping that fate would smile on them since they had no money to hire the services of a lawyer.
Fortunately, luck shone on them after a lawyer, Charles Okungbowa, visited the prison and probed into the cause of their incarceration.
Their trial was conducted before Justice Adeniyi Adebajo (rtd), and it took about four years before conclusion— no thanks to several adjournments at the instance of the prosecution.
After about four years of litigation, Justice Adebajo dismissed the charge of conspiracy and armed robbery against Daniel and Saturday.
Narrating his ordeal before Justice Adebajo, Saturday said: “I was selling puff puff at Oyingbo Market around 12pm and police came there at a point I was about to sell to a customer. As I put down my show glass to sell to a customer inside a vehicle, they drove close and arrested me.
“They searched me and saw the N700 in my pocket and a newspaper I folded in my back pocket. There was nothing more and so they collected the N700 and told me to enter the car.
“I was asking them what I have done and that they should wait for me to carry my show glass but they dragged me inside the car and told me to give them N5000 before they will free me.
“I told them I do not have any other money except the N700 they have taken from me and they said I will see myself at the station. When we got to the station, they asked me to write my statement and I told them I am not educated and do not even know what to write since they arrested me while I was doing my business.
“I did not write any statement. They wrote it themselves and they accused me of armed robbery at Ajah. Meanwhile, I have never been to Ajah. They told me to call my people to bring N100, 000 to bail me. My brother came with N30, 000; they collected it and said the money was small that he should bring more.
“He told them he does not have money and they were beating me everyday to accept I am an armed robber. They even shot me on my leg and it was the other suspects in the cell that used candle wax to treat the injuries they inflicted on me.
“They told me that is how they treat any wound inflicted on them by the police. That they light candle and put the wax inside the injury to kill the germs. I was tortured on daily basis while at Panti until they finally took me to Yaba Magistrates’ Court for arraignment.
“I never knew Amen Daniel until the morning of our arraignment. It was the police who brought him and told me that he was my co-suspect, that we committed the armed robbery together. I told them I do not know him and have never seen him but they told me to shut up and took us to court.
“I just thank God that eight years after, I am alive and have regained my freedom. I am begging the government to investigate the police. The way they treat poor people is not good. I was 19 years when I was arrested, now I am 26 years and I have spent eight years in prison, for committing no offence.
“If not for this lawyer who came to the prison and asked us what happened, after we explained to him and told him we do not have money, he promised to help us and since then, he has been the one helping us. I pray that God will bless him for the good thing he did for me,” said Saturday.
Delivering judgment, the judge berated the police. He said it was spurious that the police did not provide any evidence whatsoever linking the defendants to their purported crimes.
Justice Ebenezer Adebajo held that “the only evidence of robbery before this court was the taking of N700 from the second defendant (Saturday) by men of the Nigeria Police who are usually armed when going on patrols or raiding…
“I am of the opinion that in the course of the defendants’ incarceration at the police stations, they suffered gunshot wounds and the first defendant was further tortured. No statement that purports to be confessional would stand in the light of police brutality… I find the defendants not guilty of the charge. The charge is hereby dismissed and the defendants discharged and acquitted.”
Although the defendants have been released by the court, the pain inflicted on them through torture, loss of loved ones and wasted years have not been wiped away.
Even the filing of Fundamental Human Rights (FHR) infringement charges against their oppressors, which is the only available option, may not hold water, especially because the police have flagrantly disobeyed such orders from court without being held for contempt.
A lawyer, Ahmed Adetola-Kazeem, said lawyers are frustrated in pursuing and ensuring the victims get their money as a result of the solidarity between the judges and the law enforcement agencies.
He noted that the agencies also file appeals, which they do not pursue, as tactic to avoid paying judgment debt, just as he insisted that the laws are accurate but not enforced.
He said: “Most times the sums awarded as damages or compensation by the courts, especially the state high courts, are very meager and hardly worth pursuing giving the rigours involved. The meagre award is largely in my opinion due to the solidarity between the judges and the government. The judges who do this are mostly those who were formally in the ministries of justice.
“Where the judges were also bold to award damages, they are unwilling to enforce the judgments, for the fear of been victimised by their various state governments or the law enforcement agencies.
“Another reason why it is difficult to recover the damages is that, the agencies will most times not pay the damages in their volition or on receipt of demand letter from counsel to the victims. They instead rush to file appeal, which is rarely pursued, but filed as a tactic to frustrate the judgment creditor.
“They equally file application for stay of execution at the high court, which is often granted. All these adds to the frustration of the indigent victim, who doesn’t have the financial muscle to go all the way to recover the damages.
“In my case, I have had to do the cases pro bono from inception and it becomes discouraging after a while because of the delay and frustration tactics employed by the judgment debtors, the situation is worsened when you realise the paltry sum awarded by the court.
“We have the garnishee proceedings where the judgment creditor urged the court to order the garnishee( most times, the bank(s) keeping the money of the judgment debtor) to pay him the judgment debt.
“Where the garnishee, who has the debtors money in its possession, refuses to pay the money, a contempt proceeding can be instituted against the responsible officer of the bank. Contempt proceeding can also be brought against the Judgment debtors where they brazenly disobey the orders of the court.
“So, in summary, the problem is not in the laws, but in the willingness of the courts to ensure its orders are obeyed.”
Okungbowa said he decided to help the duo because he felt they were denied justice and fairness by the police, the Magistrates’ Court and the Ministry of Justice since their arrests on December 6 for Daniel and December 14 for Saturday, both in 2006.
“I met the defendants in Ikoyi Prisons sometime in 2010 during a visit to see some of my clients. My clients were the ones who introduced the duo and asked me to see how I could help them since they had suffered hopelessness to access justice and regain their freedom of liberty being deprived them by the long prison remand, which ordinarily should not have been more than one or two months as the case may be.
“When I came in contact with them, they were still awaiting trial and neither the police nor the state Ministry of Justice had filed a charge against them at the appropriate courts of competent jurisdiction.
“The unprofessional, illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional manner they were arrested and the circumstances/torture of beating, hanging, burnt with hot pressing iron and being shot with gun on their legs that they were subjected to by the officers and men of the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti, Yaba in their detention cell propelled me as a lawyer and activist to take up their case pro bono and defend them successfully.”
Okungbowa said he felt bad that the police still go about arresting and detaining innocent people.
“I feel very bad and concerned. It is condemnable, reprehensible and a stop must be put to it. Everybody in the society must come together in fighting it to a standstill and not offering lip services in public, only to go behind and use the police to harass or intimidate others.
“Also prompt investigation of any allegation of misused powers by the police should be carried out with appropriate punishment meted on any defaulter. Another measure is to hold their superiors, departments or formation, accountable and responsible too, who do not properly supervise them and take any of their wrong doings seriously.
“Finally, the human rights units in the police force are not working as it should be and is manned by the same police officers and men. This should stop and if we are serious with the unit, it should be headed by a lawyer and comprise other members of the civil society.
“Also seminars and workshops on civil and constitutional right lectures, topics or courses should be organised as refresher and retraining for the police,” he said.
