Why is the National Assembly quiet while the judiciary appears to compromise the law?

HURIWA, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, recently faulted the ruling of Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja that sentenced kingpin kidnapper Hamisu Bala of Taraba State, otherwise known as Wadume, to only seven years jail term. The association observed that Wadume and his brother-in-crime, Anambra-born kidnap kingpin, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, popularly known as ‘Evans’ committed similar crimes. It then wondered why Wadume should be jailed for only 7 years while Evans was jailed for 21 years by Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of the Lagos State Special Offences Court which jail term HURIWA described as appropriate. The rights group demanded that police authority initiate a fresh prosecution against Wadume and his co-conspirators for the murder of some police officers.

According to HURIWA chairman, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the 21-year conviction of Evans, the Anambra kidnap kingpin, was salutary but when compared with Taraba state’s Wadume’s 7 years jail term, the judgment from the Federal High Court looked like a mockery of the judiciary and the entire wheel of justice in Nigeria. Some sections of the judiciary, by their decisions, appeared to be abetting kidnapping because while Evans’ offences attracted far heavier sanctions which HURIWA was not particularly opposed to, Wadume, who was arraigned for exactly the same crime of kidnapping with arms got a lighter punishment after years of secrecy shrouding his trial.

Given a situation where the same offences attracted different levels of punishment because of the individuals involved, HURIWA said it was forced to believe that Nigeria’s judiciary had been exposed to ridicule. There was no justification anywhere for the controversial ‘’justice’’ done in the case of Wadume who was said to have killed police officers during some of his operations, it argued. To the organization, it was the case of ‘the Jacob I love’ and ‘the Esau I hate’, even though the Jacob in this instance – Wadume – was treacherous even more the Esau in the scenario.

HURIWA as a civil rights organization was fully aware of the public danger of kidnapping and was pleased with the handling of the case of Evans. The organization explained that the expectation of the people of Nigeria was that the judiciary should be dispassionate and no respecter of personalities. It said the Lady of Justice was supposed to be blindfolded not to reckon with religious sentiments, but it was unfortunate that certain actions of some judges had removed the blindfold on the Lady of Justice in Nigeria, serving their kinsmen lighter sentences and their configured foes, grave and unjustifiable jail terms or persistent adjournments and languishing in the dungeons of the law enforcement agencies.

HURIWA said it didn’t want to believe that Evans’ sentencing to prolonged imprisonment was probably because of his place of origin given that as human rights crusaders their members were in support of the application of the death penalty for armed kidnapping. But they also reasoned that the mere tender slap on the back of Wadume by the judiciary was a despicable and absolutely awkward act. HURIWA unequivocally called for the retrial of Wadume’s case and asked that no self-respecting person should offer himself to enlist in the Nigeria Police Force since the lives of three policemen were allegedly wasted by Wadume.

The organization said: “And going by the skewed judgement of Justice Nyako, it is apparent that the loss of lives of three persons who may be the breadwinners of their families doesn’t matter to the judiciary or rather the office of the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice who should be the upholder of justice in the country’’.

The organization believed that the verdict in Abuja on the Taraba kidnapping kingpin was absolutely treacherous and if the reason was because of the deliberately distorted charges with lesser sentence framed by the prosecutors, then President Muhammadu Buhari needed to let Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice, relinquish his office with immediate effect. HURIWA was of the opinion that the Nigeria Bar Association and other allied bodies must not look on or pretend not to be aware of this sham and the ‘’unacceptable verdict in the case of the Taraba kidnap kingpin being served in the courtrooms.”

Indeed, it was William Godwin who said: the law is made for man and not man for the law. Wherever we can be sure that the most valuable interests of a nation require that we should decide one way, that way we ought to decide. And when a law ceases to serve its purpose, it is either amended or changed. In some cases, a new law is enacted to keep up with the demands of the times. With these and some other cases of kidnapping that Nigerian judges have recently disposed of, the people of Nigeria ought to be worried and want to know if the judges are actually compromising or bending the law and for what reason? The two cases of Evans and Wadume recently disposed of by the judiciary definitely call the interpretation of the law by the third arm of government to grave question.

Nigeria`s Criminal Code Act recognizes and criminalises armed robbery which is far less of a crime than kidnapping. Far less because both involve the use of dangerous weapons like guns, but while one steals commodities or property, the other steals human beings or human life. The Criminal Code Act makes ample provisions concerning armed robbery. Section 401 of the Criminal Code Act in defining robbery says: “any person who steals anything and, at or immediately after the time of stealing it, uses or threatens to use actual violence to any person or property in order to obtain or retain the thing stolen or to prevent or overcome resistance to its being stolen or retained, is said to be guilty of robbery.’’

Section 402 provides the punishment for robbery thus: any person who commits the offence of robbery shall upon conviction be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than twenty-one years. But if any offender mentioned in subsection (1) of this section is armed with any firearms or any offensive weapon or any obnoxious or chemical materials or is in company with any person so armed; or at or immediately after the time of robbery the said offender wounds any person, the offender shall upon conviction be sentenced to death.

So, it is as clear as crystal that the law in Nigeria punishes armed robbery with death and no less than that. The law takes the issue of armed robbery and kidnapping very seriously in Nigeria. But recent turn arounds in the judiciary seem to give credence to that idea of many observers of Nigeria’s democratic evolution that the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari often gives the impression to the international community that in Nigeria violence pays.

It is no secret that Nigerian criminal law reserves its most punitive punishments for those crimes it considers most antisocial. In many ways we can say that its stiffest sanction is the capital punishment. The pain of death, the sentence of death is the ultimate sanction. Therefore, anyone who kills another under circumstances constitutive of culpable homicide deserves the punishment of death. Same goes for those armed during a robbery or kidnap operation. The sentence of death imposed under this section may be executed by hanging the offender by the neck till he be dead or by causing such offender to suffer death by firing squad as the Governor may direct.

Perhaps, section 11 of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act is critical to understanding the offence of armed robbery. It is the section that interprets the tenets of the law. It defines “firearms” to include any canon, gun, rifle, carbine, machine-gun, cap-gun, flint-lock gun, revolver, pistol, explosive or ammunition or other firearm, whether whole or in detached pieces. And “offensive weapon” means any article (apart from a firearm) made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person or intended by the person having it for such use by him and it includes an air gun, air pistol, bow and arrow, spear, cutlass, marchette, dagger, cudgel, or any piece of wood, metal, glass or stone capable of being used as an offensive weapon.

So, for a robbery to be armed robbery, it must be done with an offensive weapon. This is the critical distinguishing factor between robbery and armed robbery. It is the very thin line between a twenty – one year sentence and a sentence of death. But kidnapping attracts only the death sentence because the perpetrators are always armed with offensive weapons.

So, why are both Evans and Wadume given jail sentences instead of the death sentence seeing that both were involved in the use of firearms, and both were involved in killing their victims. Could it be that the law has changed cause and the death penalty has been abolished without passing through the legislature? And why is the National Assembly not saying anything? Why is the National Assembly keeping so quiet while the judiciary appears to be giving criminals soft landings and creating the impression that impunity, violence and criminality pay in Nigeria?

By Emeka Asinugo, KSC