Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has advised the Federal Government not to leave the planned reopening of all unresolved political murder cases in the country in the hands of the police alone.
Instead, he said an independent commission of inquiry on whose foundation the police could build on, should be set up to investigate the cases.
The Special Adviser to the President on Communications, Mr. Segun Adeniyi, had on Sunday, said that President Umaru Yar‘Adua had ordered the police to reopen the cases.
But Soyinka said if the cases were left again entirely for the police to handle, the nation might still end up with boastful murderers being arraigned for attempts to disturb the peace.
The literary icon‘s position was contained in a message read on his behalf by Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin at an event organised by the Campaign for Democracy to commemorate the World‘s Human Rights Day in Lagos on Monday.
While lauding the decision, Soyinka said that the prime member of all fundamental human rights was the right to life.
He said, ”Even the most unsavoury politician is entitled to that basic right, yet in the years of the prior incumbency, this nation witnessed an unprecedented level of violations of this right, carried out with impunity, with prime suspects treated like royalty and even catapulted straight to the exalted space of lawgivers, right from prison.
”Would it be sufficient, I wonder, to leave those cases yet again entirely in the hands of the police? We might end up again with boastful murders being arraigned for attempts to disturb the peace.
”Perhaps and independent commission of inquiry into these killings might be the way to begin, laying a foundation on which the police have no choice but to build their cases. Just an idea.
”The most important step has been taken, however, a step which says that the gates to the palace of justice remain wide open.
”The constituency of justice extends of course beyond criminality. Political justice is the permanent quest of all known communities and remains as pertinent and crucial a fundamental human right as most others.
”It is the sole guarantee not only of national security but of cohesion. It is my hope that your own quest for justice finds its fulfilment within the global vision of egalitarian co-existence, founded on principled, negotiated relations among the parts that make up the whole.”
Some of the recent celebrated unresolved murder cases in Nigeria include those of a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige; a Peoples Democratic Party governorship aspirant in Lagos State, Chief Funsho Williams, and his Ekiti State counterpart, Mr. Ayo Daramola, among others.
Ige was killed at his home in Ibadan, Oyo State, on December 23, 2001.
Senator Iyiola Omisore and some other persons were detained over the murder but were later freed over weak prosecution.
On June 26, 2004, Justice Akin Sanda of an Ibadan High Court discharged the two-count charge of conspiracy and murder preferred against Omisore, saying the evidence before the court was insufficient to warrant a conviction.
The judge also accused the police of conducting a shoddy investigation.
Also, an Ibadan high court, which struck out the case on October 15, 2004 discharged and acquitted seven other persons, including the alleged prime suspect, Olugbenga Adebayo Adedamola (aka Fryo), on a two-count charge of conspiracy and murder because the prosecution failed to prove its allegations.
The court said the police conducted a ”slip-shod” investigation, and that the evidence povided by the prosecution was circumstantial and insufficient to convict the accused persons.
A former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, in December 2006, exactly five years after the killing, said that the police would not reopen investigations into the murder.
Ehindero said it was wrong to assume that the police would reopen the case when it was clear that they had done their best by arresting and prosecuting some suspects in connection with the murder.
The late Ige‘s family, however, took up the gauntlet with Ehindero, saying that it was unheard of in law for any criminal investigation to be declared as closed when the culprits had not been identified.
Speaking in an interview in Ibadan, the former minister‘s daughter, Mrs. Funso Adegbola, said that the family was confident that her father’s killers will be exposed and punished.
She stated that the lack of progress in the case was a clear indication of government‘s lukewarm attitude towards the matter in spite of former President Olusegun Obasanjo‘s pledge to expose the killers.
Williams was killed in his Lagos residence on July 27, 2006.
Shortly after his murder, all the governorship aspirants of the party in the state were arrested and detained at the Force Criminal Investigations Department, Annex, Alagbon.
They include Senator Musiliu Obanikoro; and a former Minister of Works, Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe.
At the wake of the killing, the police said nine suspects, including three policemen on guard at the deceased‘s residence, would be charged to court to face murder charges.
Ehindero, who paraded the suspects at a press conference at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, had said 46 suspects were arrested following the incident.
According to him, 20 of the suspects found to belong to a paramilitary organisation, were screened and charged to court for different offences.
He said of the remaining 26 , nine were found to have high degree of involvement. They included three riot policemen and one domestic worker of the deceased.
He gave the names of the riot policemen as Tunani Sonani, Mustapha Kayode and Okponwasa Imariable. The others were Abubakar Kalamu, Bulama Kolo (allegedly found with Williams‘ handset), Garba Abubakar, Musa Maina, David Cassidy (domestic guard to the deceased) and Felix John.
Meanwhile, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, has asked the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, to include the murder of a foremost journalist, Mr. Dele Giwa, in the investigations into the unresolved assassinations in the country.
Giwa was killed by a parcel bomb on October 19, 1986.
In an open letter to the police boss, a copy of which was made available to our correspondent in Lagos on Monday, Fewehinmi, who is also a renowned human rights activist, asked Okiro to perform his duty ”effectively, efficiently and without fear or favour.”
He reminded the IG that whatever he does would be under the full glare of God and posterity.
Fawehinmi‘s statement was signed by a lawyer in the Gani Fawehinmi Chambers, Mr. Adindu Ugwuzor.
Also on Monday, the Action Congress commended Yar’Adua for ordering Okiro to reopen all unresolved cases.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the directive showed courage on the part of the President and would help to move the country forward by healing old wounds.
It expressed the hope that the IG would move swiftly and would leave no stone unturned to unravel the murders, even if it means bringing back some top officers, who were suspiciously retired for getting close to the truth on some of the killings, to assist in the investigations.
The statement reads, “It has always been our stand in the AC that most of those killings, especially those involving Chief Bola Ige, Aminosari Dikibo, Marshal Harry and Funso Williams, were political, and that such killings won’t stop until they are resolved.
“In fact, we believe the inability of the law enforcement agencies to resolve any of the murders has fuelled more killings by emboldening the perpetrators that they can always get away with their nefarious acts.
“While unmasking the killers will not bring back the dead, it will offer some consolation to the families of the deceased and put some sort of closure to the circumstances surrounding the death of their loved ones.”
By Olalekan Adetayo
The Punch
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
