The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Justice

  • Justice well served

    Justice well served

    •The swift arrest and diligent prosecution of kidnappers of Chief Falae should be replicated in all similar cases

    Eighteen months after a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, was kidnapped on his farm in Akure, the Ondo State capital, the end of justice was finally served as the court has convicted the kidnappers. It is one instance in which all those involved in the justice system acquitted themselves so well that they won the commendation of the victim, his family and the general public.

    Justice Williams Olamide of the Ondo State High Court who heard the case found the seven arraigned for the crime guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment, in line with provisions of the extant law. The Falae kidnap was one that elicited emotions across the country, especially in the South West. The kidnappers were Fulani herdsmen to whom have been credited a number of atrocities in parts of the country in the past two years.

    Chief Falae was served the raw deal on his 77th birthday, taken through bush paths for days and could have died in the process. The harrowing experience was another indication that the country had suddenly become more volatile in recent times.

    The incident came at a time when there was an outcry that none of the criminals perpetrating the evil had been caught, arraigned and successfully put through trial, thus leading to suggestions that the Fulani herdsmen were being protected. It was suggested that the crises in Agatu, Benue State, Southern Kaduna and Enugu, among others, did not draw the ire of the presidency as would be expected for this reason.

    However, with the prompt arrest of the criminals in the Falae case, the thorough investigation by the police and diligent prosecution by the Ondo State Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Nigerians are re-assured that, indeed, the justice system could be made efficient if officials involved decide to apply the rules without fear or favour. We agree with the DPP, Mrs. Adesola Adeyemi-Kuti, that “justice was well served’ in the case.

    We call on the Federal Government to extend the same process to pending kidnapping cases. The only basis for unity and stability in the country is ensuring that justice is manifestly done in all cases. It is also important that investigations to cases in Southern Kaduna and Agatu, in particular, be stepped up with a view to establishing the perpetrators.

    The police should not close the Falae case until the two men at large are apprehended and brought to justice. The second raid on the farm leading to the kidnap of Chief Falae’s guard and subsequent murder in April 2016, too, should be pursued to its logical conclusion.

    Criminals, whether they are involved in economic sabotage or kidnapping, or armed robbery or rape should realise that the long arm of the law would catch up with them and only then would they be dissuaded from putting others through such harrowing experiences.

  • For justice

    For justice

    We should ponder the paradox. Magu is fighting thieves. He takes them to court but loses. Lawyers smile home with their fees and judges get their pay. The people do not get their due though. Why? Because when whistle-blowers scream, stolen money erupts from hidden places.

    A shop from a high-end store spews out about N500 million. From a market where iya amala retails folksy delicacies, a kiosk spits out N250 million. From an airport up north, five bags burst with crisp currency on the border of N50 million.

    An unknown receptacle of other people’s money stashes N4 billion in an unnamed bank. Then a flat hoists $43 million. A sitting governor salivates for it and accuses his predecessor of ferreting it away from a project. The National Intelligence Agency says it is their own, as though the Nigerian money should not reside in the bank. So, on its own, the huge sum rented a flat in a tony loft on Victoria Island.

    The people are miffed, and when the man who stalks the larcenous monsters goes to court, some lawyers of great knowledge know better. They hang onto technical matters of the law, and hang the prosecution. Magu weeps. The thieves sigh. The people wonder.

    The eruption of loot in private places juxtaposes with the SANs and justices who give victory to the defence. This shows us, as I indicated last week, that law has failed us in Nigeria. The courts say the thieves can go free, we can go to hell. What then is the purpose of the law?

    They claim the cases were not properly presented. It’s an excuse to canonise criminals. If the society as a whole owes itself the task to battle sleaze, the onus lies on the court, lawyers and judges to bring it to fruition. There lies the value of the lawyers.

    Yet, it is the same lawyers who fail to make the case, and the judges who fail to give the right verdict. So, is it the law that we should blame? Well, a little bit. Our laws pretend to be rooted in our culture. But it is an import from Europe and the United States. Nothing wrong with that. But we have failed to adapt them to our peculiar social context. The laws are domiciled here but not domesticated. It’s like a broadcaster employed from Coventry whose accent skews a local name on NTA.

    But those judges who claim to be loyalists of technical details know little about what the law means. In western societies, the technicalities work because the values are settled. For instance, a society that forces a judge to recuse himself because he is suggested to have a link with a lawyer is acting out of a sense of justice. In such a society, the law knows its technicality does not bow to mere letter of the law, but the spirit. It is the same spirit that forces the judge to resign that informs the jugular of verdicts.

    In Europe and the U.S., the same constitution that compelled the society to burn blacks at the stake was used to enfranchise them in the flush of the civil rights movement. The society must allow its values to determine the law. The society rose against racial injustice, and the eyes of judges were opened to the law that espouses equality. It was always there in the US law, that “all men are created equal.”

    They saw it when the society evolved. Before then, no matter the cleverness of the prosecution, the judges looked the other way as dark-skinned folks flared to ashes. Hence Gani Fawehinmi noted that if he had a case between the rich man and the poor man, he would find the law for the poor man. The law may be an ass, but we must not let it ride us. An instance was recently, when Justice D.D. Longi let two armed robbery suspects free because of “lack of diligent prosecution.” The justice was lazy. Did he not have the capacity of the law to scream to the state authorities and the media and compel them to make the case? If he wrote them formally and asked the attorney general to wade in, the media would holler with headlines. Social media would echo it. Longi made technicalities work against justice. The fellows may be innocent or guilty. He owed us the duty to exhaust all institutional resources first. It’s matters like this that made D.H. Thoreau say that “the law never made anyone a whit more just.”

    The founding father of Botswana, Seretse Khama, was denied under a technical law from being king because he married a white woman. They manipulated local chiefs, including his regent uncle. But he marshalled the law to expose the British, including shifty Winston Churchill, who were less interested in justice than the diamond in the bowel of Bechuanaland.

    Behind every big case of fraud is a SAN, and behind any judgment that liberates a thief is a judge with a callow mind. Shakespeare’s Henry the VI character, Dick the Butcher, said, “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” He meant it in jest, but the quote has endured through the ages because of the intellectual duplicity of wigs. Our SANs are a great bane of the age. Hence Jesus poured woe on lawyers because they have “taken away the key of knowledge. You have not entered yourselves, and you have hindered those who are entering.”

    The verdicts on Patience Jonathan, Ozhekome, Ademola point to this general decadence. To save the law, we have to first save the lawyers. The society has a role to play. The lawyers have fallen short, so have our judges. The judges failed in the three EFCC cases because they did not apply the principle of hermeneutics for justice. The reader interprets a text in context. No text is bland until the reader makes it. If the lawyer is making an imperfect case, a good judge will do the right and save the case. That’s when the rule of law makes sense. But our justices are lost because they love themselves and their money more, and the society less. “The more one judges, the less one loves,” wrote French writer Honore de Balzac. We want lawyers and judges that love our society more.

  • Justice for Cynthia

    Justice for Cynthia

    The recent conviction of Nwabufor Echezona and Ezike Ikechukwu Olisaeloka, for the murder of Cynthia Osokugo, by Justice Olabisi Akinlade of the High Court of Lagos State, is a fitting denouement for the duo. This is without prejudice to their right of appeal. Now, the spirit of Cynthia is pacified, while the sympathetic public and the agonising parents of the delectable beauty, mercilessly murdered, can at least repose some confidence in our criminal justice system, even though it took five years to secure their conviction.

    The other two accused persons, Pharmacists Orji Osita and Maduakor Chukwunonso, were discharged and acquitted by the court. While they may be celebrating their freedom, I guess they will also be appalled by the criminal justice system that dragged them through a trial, which many had argued was overkill. Even while we appreciate the efforts that brought the murderers to their comeuppance, it is also important to examine the efficiency of the process.

    To gift us a better society, state governments should audit the processes involved in police investigation; review the experience of the relevant officials and the standards used to weigh the proof of evidence in the office of the Director of Public Prosecution before they decide to prosecute. Even without asking for a standard beyond reasonableness, such an audit would save many of those languishing in jail across the country, and also state resources.

    For me, it is also important for our country to begin to contemplate a more efficient criminal justice system, different from the current inefficient one. Considering the improvements already made by the Lagos State government in its laws, compared with other states of the federation, is it not worrisome that a criminal trial could take five years; and that those who had no link with a murder, could be subjugated to the horror of defending a murder charge for that long?

    This column on September 4, 2012, wrote on: “Convicting the murderers of Cynthia Osokugo.” At the risk of sounding impetuous, my argument then substantially falls on all fours, with the recent judgment. With a slight amendment, I represent my arguments:

    “The absolutely senseless Facebook-related murder of Miss Cynthia Osokugo around Festac Town, Lagos, once again portrays the moral abyss that many youths have sunk into. Reading through the newspapers’ account of the police report, one is appalled by the callous indignity and scurrilous imbecility exhibited by Nwabufor Echezona (33) and Ezike Ikechukwu Olisaeloka (23), who reportedly confessed to the murder of that beautiful young woman. But while we mourn Cynthia, the society will be better off, if the culprits receive their comeuppance. Also it is important that Pharmacists Orji Osita and Maduakor Chukwunonso are not unfairly charged together with the confessed murderers. But I will come to that…

    It is also encouraging that the often vilified Nigerian police moved quickly on this murder case, at least to the extent of nabbing the confessed murderers. But it must be borne in mind by the prosecuting authority that getting the accused persons charged to court, and getting them convicted for culpable homicide does not inviolably follow as a sequence. The prosecution must proffer hard core evidence to prove their case, and the courts are never in a hurry to convict, where there exists any iota of doubt. Notably, the prosecution is made up of the investigation and prosecution in court. So, if the first is messed up, then the second will not succeed as matter of course, and that is why the proof of evidence must contain only hard core evidence, not unnecessary emotional baggage.

    Reading through some of the reported police charges, it seems they were couched to secure the maximum custody of all the accused persons, regardless of the actual cause of Cynthia’s death; and this may harm the prosecution. In Lori vs The State, 1ACLC at page 217, the Supreme Court, per Nnamani JSC, held: “In a charge of murder the cause of death of the deceased must be established unequivocally and the burden rests on the prosecution to establish this and if they fail the accused must be discharged. It is also settled law that the accused or put differently, it must be shown that the deceased died as a result of the act of the accused”. Also in Uguru vs The State, 2002 FWLR at page, per Uwaifo JSC, the SC held: “The burden on the prosecution is to prove not only that the act of the accused could have caused the death of the deceased but that it certainly did. If there is the possibility that the deceased died from other causes than the act of the accused, the prosecution has not established the case against the accused.”

    In Cynthia’s case, both the confessed felons and the pharmacists whose alleged complicity was that they sold ‘Rohypnol Flunitrazepam tablets (used to treat short-term insomnia) over the counter without prescription were all charged for the murder. The police must have been in a hurry to be seen to have performed, otherwise how they can conscientiously also charge Maduakor whose offence is that he merely sold the same drug to an undercover police officer, long after the murder of Cynthia had taken place, for complicity in the murder? Now if the police bothered to find out what the drug Rohypnol Flunitrazepam is, as clearly explained by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), then unless there are other acts of complicity to ground conspiracy, charging Osita who allegedly sold the drugs to the confessed felons for the offence of murder, instead of dragging him to the Pharmaceutical Society for breach of professional ethics, is preposterous.

    That perhaps explains why PSN is protesting against the charges, stating that the sale of prescription drugs over the counter is a mere professional misconduct, and cannot rightly be ascribed to murder or even a conspiracy for murder. And they are right. In Njovens vs The State 1 ACLC at page 290; the Supreme Court held: “The overt act or omission which evidences conspiracy is the actus reus and the actus reus of each and every conspiracy must be referable and very often is the only proof of criminal agreement which is called conspiracy. It is not necessary to prove that the conspirators like those who murdered Julius Caesar, were seen together …. They need not all have started the conspiracy at the same time … the gist of this offence of conspiracy is the meeting of the mind of the conspirators …. Hence conspiracy is a matter of inference from certain criminal acts of the parties’ concerned done in pursuance or an apparent criminal purpose in common between them….” Is the alleged sale of Rohypnol such common purpose?

    Again the charge for armed robbery, against the two confessed felons and the pharmacists is mere distraction. If the two real culprits took Cynthia’s belongings after murdering her; stealing will be more appropriate…”

     

     

     

     

  • Woman seeks justice for detained husband

    Woman seeks justice for detained husband

    A housewife, Saratu AlHassan, has appealed to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, to prevail on policemen at Area 10, Garki, Abuja, to release her husband who was detained last Tuesday.
    She said his continuous incarceration has brought untold hardship to their family, adding that his 70-year-old mother, who is unaware of the situation, is worried because she has neither spoken to nor seen him since.
    Yusuf AlHassan, a Lagos-based businessman and stockbroker, was arrested at the behest of a former Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), following an alleged business transaction that turned awry.
    According to Saratu, the man, who was a friend to her husband before he became SEC’s DG, invested some money in AlHassan’s company and usually calls her husband to send money to different individuals, all of which were documented.
    “But because he went broke, the former DG woke up and claimed that my husband stole his money, that the money he invested didn’t yield profit. “My husband was first arrested in December and flown to Abuja, where they kept him for some days before he was granted bail.
    “He showed the policemen the documents of transactions and the errands he was running for the man but they didn’t listen because a retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) was backing him. Because of the man, my husband’s importation company became bankrupt.
    “Besides, he would also demand that money be sent to certain people; he virtually turned my husband to his errand boy. My husband barely had time for the business because he was helping his friend to succeed. See the way the man now wants to repay him.
    “After he was released in December, the man claimed that the money he invested then and the accrued interest had amounted to about N75 million, and my husband must pay. My husband denied owing him but the
    She called for partnership with the private sector to attract finance and pledged that the agency will continue to work closely with renewable energy associations to overcome the electricity challenge.

  • Family seeks justice over son’s death in custody

    Family seeks justice over son’s death in custody

    Family of a 19-year-old detainee who died in custody last month has cried out for justice.

    Pastor Gabriel Atansuyi, father of Ifedolapo, 19, who died in Okokomaiko Awo Police Post, Adeniji Adele on February 25, refuted the police claim that his son killed himself.

    He said it was impossible for his son to hang himself with his shirt when suspects are detained with only their underwear on.

    He said the phone, which his son was said to have stolen, has been found.

    “I was told by a reliable source that the phone, an iphone, was found in a tricycle by the driver and it has been handed over to the owner,” he said.

    He explained how the incident happened: “On the day my son was taken to the police station, he was asleep, the second son of my brother’s wife came to wake him up to run an errand for a woman (Tessy) that came for prayers in the church, ahead of her marriage on February 26.  Tessy sent my son to deposit money for her in the bank, which he did. He also sent him to the eatery three times during which the phone got missing. Because my son got the phone missing, Tessy and my brother’s wife, Esther shouted at him, saying he must produce the phone. I intervened and pleaded for patience, but my voice fell on deaf ears.  Now they have found the phone, but my son is dead.”

    He said his son told him how he was threatened before he was handed over to the police. “My son called me on February 25 to come to the cell. I went with a man and the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) was with us. He told us that on the 24th, Wale (Tessy’s husband) and some boys took him to Marina sea side, stripped him naked and tied his hands and legs. He said they flogged him with wire and he sustained injuries which I saw on his body. He told me that they brought out a gun and said they will kill him, throw him inside the lagoon and said they will tell everyone that he ran away, adding that nobody can question them. With this threat, my son told me that he had to say he sold the phone.

    “He was there after brought to the church and later handed over to the police.  I was not allowed to talk to him, he was just looking at me, and he could not talk. I later discovered that the man is a cultist, so I’m being careful the way I move around on Lagos Island. How would my son have sold the phone within the few minutes he was sent on the errand and where would he have sold it, since his journey did not pass Lagos Island? My son is a musician, he has gathered three songs and we were planning to produce the songs. I had plans to set up a studio for him, but they have truncated his vision.

    “When I got back home on the 25th, Isaiah was accusing me that why was I going round to say they used gun to threaten my son, whereas, I was coming from the cell, which means the IPO must have either told him, and that depicts that there is a matter going on underground involving Wale, Isaiah and the police, they are on good terms. When I was told that my son was dead, I had partial stroke, and I was taken to the general hospital, I was told that I was just laughing when I was told of the incident.

    “What police is claiming is that they are not the one that killed my son, but that my son killed himself. I know all the cells are built to standard. I was in the cell, it is built with bricks, the wall is high and it is an open roof such that sun and rain will beat the inmates. My son was the only one in the cell, how could he tie and hang himself up, without climbing anything, this shows the police are lying.

    “My son has no mind to do such, if he sees fight, he will leave the scene, I have never heard nor see him fighting. If I was told that he died because he was tortured, I would have no problem but that my son killed himself is a lie.

    “How come nobody has been arrested since the phone was found? How come the IPO heard all that my son said and all those involved can still walk freely on the street?

    “It is not that I cannot forget the death of my son, but there is no sense of remorse from those that killed my son. Nobody was arrested. The IPO in Panti Police Station in Yaba, called me to ask me what I want, when she discovered that I got a lawyer to fight my case. I was asked if I want a car or tricycle in order not to make it a court case. The police are insisting that they are not the one that killed my son, but I am insisting that they have a hand in the death of my son,” he said.

  • Ife Crisis: Unity or justice?

    Ife Crisis: Unity or justice?

    It is therefore misleading for anybody, especially police investigators of crime, to resort to pontificating about unity, instead of addressing the matter of fairness of investigation.

    I apologise to my readers for choosing to delay the second part of the series on Politics of Secondary Education, in order to allow me join other commenters on the citizen-police controversy over police investigation of the crisis in Ile-Ife.

    I had lived in Ife before and even had friends in Sabo while I was teaching at the then University of Ife. I remember that despite the self-isolation of Hausa-Fulani people in Sabo, the degree of integration and harmony between Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani residents of the eastern part of the ancient town was not hidden from even casual observers of inter-group relations. The two communities: indigenes and settlers had over forty years ago many cases of inter-ethnic marriage. It should therefore be disconcerting that what used to be a peaceful community has suddenly become, in the vocabulary of the central police force, a threat to Nigeria’s unity.

    This column had written almost ad nauseam about the use of words that hide real problems in order to make those who use such words to be seen as occupying a higher moral or political ground than others. Unity and Security are two of such words. When motorists fail to park on the highway to allow politicians or their spouses in a convoy overtake them, they are warned by the police or SSS operatives to desist from acts capable of endangering the security of the country. Similarly, when two or more citizens of the country fight over whatever riles one or all of them, security personnel quickly warn them against acts capable of derailing the unity of the country.

    The response of the police to queries by Yoruba organisations about police investigation into the killing of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba people in Ife brings to focus the danger inherent in misusing the word Unity. Hear the response of the police spokesperson on charges of lack of fairness in the investigation that found only one side of a violent conflict culpable: “They should be mindful of national security and they should be mindful that every Nigerian has the right to live in any part of the country. National unity is very important. So, any association that goes to fan the ember of disunity should know that they are not doing this nation any good. The era of impunity is over.”

    Anyone reading these words would think that Hausa-Fulani people have just arrived in Ife and are being prevented from settling down by Ife indigenes. The reality of Ife is that it has been home to thousands of Hausa-Fulani people for a very long time. Historians claim that these two distinct Nigerian communities had lived together or side by side in peace since the advent of the trade in kolanut in pre-colonial Nigeria. Over the years, the relationship grew beyond commerce into romance across ethnic and even religious lines. It is therefore misleading for anybody, especially police investigators of crime, to resort to pontificating about unity, instead of addressing the matter of fairness of investigation.

    All the organisations that had raised concerns about the result of police investigation of the Ife crisis have raised points pertaining to justice while police spokespersons have focused on issues of unity. As this column had observed many times in the past, Unity seems to be one word that has been over ‘Nigerianised,’ to the extent that it means different things to different sections of the polity. Is unity an end or a means to an end? If unity— a condition or situation of harmony or accord is a means, what is it supposed to produce in a diverse society? If it is an end, what is it expected to create for or in citizens of a plural polity?

    Furthermore, what is supposed to be the role of justice— impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments, or conformity to truth, fact, or reason—in a homogenous or heterogenous society? Many people who believe in the power of reason would readily think that justice is the foundation for unity or harmony. When citizens, regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliation, raise issues about absence of thoroughness or fairness in investigation of crimes, they should be seen as being concerned with justice rather than “whipping sentiment into the police investigation” and thus threatening the country’s unity.

    The questions that are still not answered by those who conducted investigation into the Ife violence are legion. Did the police discover that only Hausa-Fulani people were killed in Ife? If the answer is no, did the police try to find out who killed non-Yoruba people who died in the fracas? Did the police first focus its investigation on the indigenes with the hope of looking at the other side of the conflict later?  Is this why the police said “outside those paraded, investigation is ongoing and we are still going to arrest anybody found to be involved”?

    If investigation is still ongoing, why did the police then rush to parade suspects as criminals in Abuja, hundreds of kilometres from the scene of crime? Would it not have been enough to just keep those already identified as suspects in detention until completion of the investigation? How fair is the ‘media trial’ of suspects in a judicial system that affirms that suspects are innocent until proven guilty? If there is any behaviour that can threaten unity in a multiethnic society, it is for law-enforcement agents to look at two parties in a conflict and rush to parade suspects before international media in Abuja while investigation is still ongoing. Such action is worrisome in view of the statement by the police spokesman: “This is no ethnic or religious clash; these are people who have been living together for years. Issues came up and that is why the police are there to ensure that anybody that takes law into his hands will face the full wrath of the law.”  What does the police hope to achieve by taking suspects who have lived together for years in Ife with their victims to Abuja—to please the central government or embarrass the attorney-general of the state in which the crimes were committed?

    One lesson arising from the new mission of the police: “The Nigeria Police Force under Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris is stamping out impunity in totality. Gone are the days when people will take up arms and kill other Nigerians and go free,” is that anybody in the country that kills other citizens—be it in Kaduna, Benue, Enugu, Mile 12 in Lagos, etc—will be identified for immediate punishment. But the police should ensure as they apply the Ile-Ife template to other parts of the country that nobody is paraded as criminal until such person has been found guilty of crime in the court of law and that suspects for all killings since the assumption of the new IGP should be identified without delay.

    Another lesson is that the state government in Osun needs to set up a commission of inquiry to look for remote and immediate causes of the crisis in Ife, given the fact that the two communities along Sabo in Ife had lived in peace and harmony for too long for the kind of violence between Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba residents of the ancient city to be left just in the hands of regular or special police investigators. Such inquiry will generate more lessons that need to be learned towards diversity management.

    What was designed to be a meeting to enrich the country’s unity in Abeokuta last week ended as another act of exclusion. The Senator Ken Nnamani Committee on Constitution and Electoral Reform organised a Southwest public hearing that was poorly publicised. The region had a better organised public hearing in 2014, preparatory to the National Conference sponsored by former President Jonathan. The preparation for the Abeokuta public hearing sells the commitment of the All Progressives Conference to “Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit” short. Any serious effort to entrench the ‘Federal spirit’ in the constitution ought to be inclusive and be seen as inclusive. It was a similar decision to exclude critical sections of the polity in the era of Sani Abacha that led to the 1999 Constitution, which citizens and even the APC government want to change, for not being a people’s constitution.

  • New Rivers nba division promises speedy dispensation of justice to grassroots

    To ensure that justice is not delayed or denied the people at the grassroots, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has opened a new branch in Okehi, Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State.

    Apart from making it possible for the rural people to access speedy dispensation of justice, the new branch would also help to build the capacity of lawyers and regularly update its members.

    Speaking at the opening ceremony of the NBA branch in Okehi, Mr Felix Amadi, the NBA Branch Chairman, stressed the importance of providing the right environment to enhance the administration of justice in all parts of the country.

    Amadi, who is also a law lecturer at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, (RSUST), Port Harcourt , noted that the standard common room for lawyers at the Okehi High Court, which was also inaugurated, would serve as a temporary centre for the NBA branch in the division.

    Amadi said: “Having achieved this milestone, our next target is to commission an NBA secretariat or NBA house in Okehi. We will soon embark on this project and I am confident that we will accomplish it.”

    He also said it was necessary for the association to establish its presence in all judicial divisions in the country to boost the synergy between the bar and the bench.

    Highlighting the benefits of having a functional NBA centre in judicial divisions, Amadi said  the presence of the association would help to strengthen other institutions in the society.

    Justice Chioma Okirie, the Presiding Judge of the Okehi Judicial Division, expressed delight to be part of the epoch-making ceremony.

    Okirie also said the branch centre and the common room would provide the needed comfort and convenience for lawyers who come to appear in courts in the division.

    She advised members of the executive of the NBA branch to provide good leadership for lawyers in the area, adding that the value of the services of the association could not be over-emphasised.

    The Secretary of the NBA branch, Mr Sylvanus Nwankwo,  said the association in Okehi would enhance the administration of justice in the area.

     

  • Global justice, politics and security

    It is apparent now that it is not an exaggeration to say that when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold. This is very obvious in the way the people and nations of our world have reacted to the shocking election of tough talking new US President Donald Trump, and its aftermath. More ominously though, the cold has suddenly turned to a high fever in the way and manner the US president has introduced a new mode of policy announcement and formulation, via tweets, executive orders, dismissive hand gestures, and the new emphatic way of saying No, inherent in his famous statement – it won’t happen.

    From France, to the UK, to Japan and Nigeria, the world is dancing to the music or reeling from the pains of Donald Trump’s bold effort to live to his campaign promise of making America ‘great and safe again‘. This is a costly effort in terms human concern on migration, religion and terrorism which the new US president has roundly condemned as not the rationale for his migration orders to stop refugees from seven majority Muslim nations. Instead, Donald Trump asserts boldly as his lawyers will argue in US Courts right to the Supreme Court if necessary, that his motive for the migrants ban are security of the US and the protection of American lives from the rampage and bloodthirstiness of global terrorism. And let us face it there is no denying that terrorism specially Islamic militant terrorism has gone global and has fanned fear, mistrust and xenophobia in most communities of the world where, hitherto, people have lived in peace and quiet until the bloody advent of ISIS in the world at large and the Boko Haram in Nigeria.

    Whilst Donald Trump battles with the judiciary in the US in what I relish as a vintage test of the much vaunted sanctity of separation of powers and checks and balances, which are hallmarks of the American presidential system, it is obvious that the temple of justice is in for some pretty rough time from the abrasive and derogatory challenge and language of the new US president. Clearly Trump has the support of his party in the US Congress but the judges of the Courts of Appeal have liberal leanings and have justified that from their recent ruling not to lift the ban they have imposed on Trump’s migrant ban. Their argument in the ruling was that executive orders are not immune to judicial review.

    They also held that the US government has not produced evidence that aliens from the banned nations have committed terrorism on US soil. The three judges then agreed with the arguments of the states that brought the case that the freedoms of travel, separation of families and discrimination have been assailed by the ban and that is unconstitutional. Of course Trump has dismissed the ruling as political and has said he will win easily on appeal . This certainly showed that Trump is not the normal run of the mill US president. This is a litigious billionaire and businessman who is used to fighting for his rights in US courts and his new office can only sharpen and expand his proclivity for having his way in the courts of the US. Especially now that he is president and he has the unique and important opportunity of having his new US Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch confirmed into office.

    This will certainly tilt the balance of that court in favor of conservative values over the prevailing liberal judicial pronouncements of the last eight years. Let us now look at how the Trump style of leadership and formulation of policies have impacted some parts of the world. Starting with France there is happiness on the part of right wing leader of the National Front, Marie Le Pen, that Trump’s election will boost her chances of becoming France’s next president in presidential elections due this year.

    She has stated clearly that Brexit and Trump’s victory were a reflection of their electorate ‘s disenchantment with the establishment parties over their handling of migration issues in allowing in migrants fleeing wars in the Middle East, who because of their religion of Islam, are potential terrorists who cannot integrate easily into European societies. Le Pen’s party under her father was like an outcast party in France for most of the time. Now, however, the Party is the front runner against the Socialist Party of current President Francois Holland who was so unpopular that he did not seek his party’s nomination for re- election. In the UK the Speaker of the British Parliament went out of his way to announce in Parliament that he will not allow Donald Trump to speak in the British Parliament on his next visit to the UK, as the US president. Which is quite interesting given the mode of operation of the British Parliamentary system.

    The first reason given by the Speaker was that he is one of the key holders to the doors of Parliament, the prime law making institution of the UK. The other two reasons for denying the opportunity are racism and sexism on which grounds he found Trump unqualified to address the British Parliament . The Speaker went on to say that the right for any visitor to address the British Parliament is not automatic but earned. Which really to me is so much balderdash from this Speaker who should know better. This is because British Parliamentary democracy is driven by the cabinet system in which the party that wins the election runs the government on a day to day basis and the PM leads that same party in Parliament in making laws.

    The Speaker’s role is to moderate debates and discussion of issues brought by parties and MPs. I wonder what role a Speaker, in this case a self – confessed housekeeper, has to play in how the PM, a first amongst equal leader of the cabinet, has to play in the choice of who will address and not address the British Parliament. And what is the duty of the PM who has invited the US president on this occasion when the Speaker has usurped the role of the PM by closing the door on her invited guest?.

    I think and advise that this Speaker should be sent on an indefinite leave till the visit occurs and told in plain terms that a Speaker is like a referee and should not use a yellow card off the field especially when the game has not even started as he has so insolently done. With regard to Japan and Nigeria the news are a bit complicated and a sort of mixed grill. Japan’s PM Shinto Abe is to play golf this weekend with Donald Trump at a private golf club in the US. While in Nigeria, labor leaders seized the opportunity of the president’s absence due to sickness to protest against what they called poor governance, corruption and economic hardship of the Nigerian people.

    Both the Japanese PM round of golf with the American president and the labor union protests against economic hardship and corruption have economic undertones and I will treat them one after the other, starting with Japan. During his campaign, Trump had frightened the Japanese and other US allies in the Pacific by saying that they have the resources to shoulder their defences and the US will review the current policy of footing the bill on that account. Indeed, that made Japan’s PM the first world leader to visit Trump at his Towers before he was sworn in. In addition the Japanese had it rough with the Obama Administration which prosecuted Toyota, one of the corporate jewels of the Japanese motor industry for poor quality brake parts in the brands sold in the US and globally.

    The head of Toyota was summoned to the US and disgraced in a public grilling in the US senate. Toyota was prosecuted successfully on the matter by the US Justice Department, and paid a colossal amount in millions of dollars as fines. In addition the Japanese PM wants to discuss how some Japanese companies will manufacture goods and services in the US in support of the Trump campaign to create more jobs in the US and stop the globalization policy of outsourcing which takes American jobs offshore. So PM Abe of Japan is killing two birds with one stone as he plays golf with the US president.

    He is polishing Japan’s image on product quality and paving the way for smoother relations on US- Japanese defence and security in the Pacific. Which means he may have to soft pedal in taking on Trump on the golf course so that he [Trump] wins clearly which will certainly boost the objectives of the Japanese PM’s golf diplomacy. With Nigeria, the issue has to do with a case of when the cat is not around, mice will play. That is what the unions have done to a sick president who is away and that is not fair .

    Granted the recession is biting. But where were these union leaders when the government increased the price of fuel from 86 naira to the present 140 naira? No sensitive and caring labor leaders in a civilized world would wish that away and kow tow without expecting that workers would bear the brunt of the economic hardship from the multiplier effect of such a fuel increase. And that is precisely what is happening. Nigerian labor leaders therefore are just crying over spilt milk. When it is a fact of life that nothing can put split milk together again.

    To make matters worse for the unions they are condemning the fight against corruption and doing this behind the moving force of the anti corruption brigade who is the president who is away on sick leave. These union leaders have forgotten that there is no power vacuum in Aso Rock and they met more than their match in the Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo who told them there is no gain without pain and that corruption is endemic and ubiquitous in Nigeria including religion and the VP himself is a pastor. I think the VP who has become our Socrates or Chief Philosopher on defeating the biting recession was just telling the union leaders to let charity begin at home in the clean up of Nigeria and face reality because they were there when the same VP explained the fuel increase and they acquiesced. So who is fooling who on recession and the fight against corruption now? Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • Killing of Nigerians: Fed Govt demands justice from South Africa

    Killing of Nigerians: Fed Govt demands justice from South Africa

    •Says about 116 killed in last two years

    The Federal Government has expressed worries over the spate of exra-judicial killings of Nigerians in South Africa.
    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Diaspora Matters, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said there was no justification for the killing of Nigerians by the South African police.
    Mrs Dabiri-Erewa appealed to the South African authorities to ensure that justice was done in the case of the Nigerians killed last December .
    Tochukwu Nnadi, a 34-year- old business man, was murdered by South African police last December 29.
    She spoke yesterday during a visit to the South African Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Lulu Louis Aaron Mnguni, in Abuja.
    The meeting, she said ,also afforded her the opportunity to discuss with the ambassador on how best the two countries can work together to achieve minimum crime and minimal negative reports coming out of Africa.
    She said: “We are worried about the criminalisation of illegal migration, especially amongst ourselves as brothers in Africa. We are worried in particular about the criminalisation of Nigerian migrants in South Africa. Yes some do commit crimes and deserve to be punished, but the extra-judicial killings worry us.
    “At the same time while we appeal to Nigerians wherever they are to obey the laws of the land, we are also worried about extra-judicial killings anywhere in the world. In South Africa, we have lost 116 Nigerians in the last two years. And in 2016 alone, about 20 were killed and 63 per cent according to statistics were extra-judicial killings in particular by the South Afrcan police.
    She hoped that the relationship between both countries gets stronger and better.
    “We hope that the death of the Nigerian who was killed in last December will get justice in the hand of the South African authority,” she said.
    The presidential aide, who showed satisfaction with the assurances extracted from the South African envoy, said : “He has promised that the Nigerian that was killed on December 29, that the case will be properly investigated and justice will be done and his excellency has promised that we are going to get a report on that and that it is not going to be business as usual. ”
    The envoy told reporters that the killing would be properly investigated and those involved would be made to face the music.
    He said: “Whatever has happened, the family of the deceased should know what happened to their loved one, in terms of the outcome of the investigations.”
    South Africa, he said, “has high level of technology to know how a person dies and all we have to do is to ensure that pathologists and the police come out with the truth and that those who have done whatever is wrong are sentenced.”
    He added that some murder cases have been resolved with culprits sentenced.
    “We have come a long way with Nigeria, a country that was so much relentless in supporting us in the days of apartheid rule.”

  • Jungle justice: Mob set robbery suspect ablaze in Aba

    A yet-to-be identified young man in his late twenties have reportedly died after a mob beat him to pulp before setting him ablaze in Aba, Abia State.

     The incident, Nation gathered happened at Amucha off Ngwa road, one of the ever busy roads in Aba South Local Government Area.

     A source at Amucha that gave her name as Chidinma said that the suspected robber had came to the area to rob, but the residents of the yard they entered resisted and over powered the gang.

     Chidinma said that while other members of the gang escaped with injuries inflicted on their bodies, the suspect was however unlucky as the occupants of the residence held him firmly and raised alarm which attracted the presence of other members of the area.

     She said that the mob, apparently angry over the spate of robbery and other violence in the area descended heavily him with dangerous weapons and inflicted bodily injuries on him.

     She said that the crowd after beating the suspect to pulp later set his body ablaze with used tyres and other materials that they (mob) could lay their hands on.

     Another source within the area told our correspondent that the incident forced a lot of people to scamper for safety to avoid an anticipated police arrest.

     Another respondent that gave his name as Godwin lamented the rate of robbery incidents at Ngwa road especially Umuogele area where robbers come to rob the residents and go home freely without being confronted by the police and other security agencies.

     Investigation by our correspondent reveal that the deplorable nature of roads leading to Amucha and Umuogele including some parts of Ohanku and Ngwa has made the terrain to be impassible using cars which gives the robbers and hoodlums the leeway to operate without the fears of being apprehended or confronted by security agencies in Aba.

     The residents of Ngwa road, however appealed to the Dr. Okezie Victor Ikpeazu led administration to come to their rescue by fixing the Ohanku road and adjourning roads and streets.

     They said that if the state government fixes their roads, it would make the people to sleep with their two eyes closed and also help police and other security agencies to have access their area and respond to distress calls promptly.

     The State Police Spokesman, ASP Ogbonnaya Nta could not be reached for comments as at the time of filing this report as his phone numbers were not reachable.