Almost another Black Maria moment

VIEW FROM THE GALLERY By MAHMUD JEGA

Nigeria Police is not exactly new to public relations scandal, but last Friday’s episode, when it charged 32 severely malnourished boys before an Abuja Federal High Court for alleged offences including treason was probably its lowest moment in public esteem since March 1980. That was when policemen packed 70 suspects into a Black Maria truck, within the premises of a Lagos magistrate’s court, left them inside for three hours on a very hot day, until 50 of them died of suffocation. That, even though the men were shouting and banging at the door to complain that they had no air to breath.

The men at the helm of the Nigeria Police today were not even constables in 1980 but last Friday, they added to the Tinubu Administration’s basket of problems including insecurity, petrol prices, fuel supply, food prices, power outage affecting several states and attacks from Afenifere. Even though the cost of living crisis is yet to abate, most of us had almost forgotten about the EndHunger protests of last August, until the spectre of over a hundred protesters charged to court last Friday provided a rude awakening. Why did it take so long to charge them to court? Why in Abuja; are there no courts in Kano and Kaduna where they were arrested?

However, it was the boys’ appearance that caused shock all over the country. Luckily there were no girls among them, which would have compounded the shock. The age of these boys was said by the prosecutor to be between 16 and 30, but most of them were clearly teenagers. From all indications their detention facilities were horrible. They looked to be underfed, emaciated, skinny, bony and dirty, their eyes betraying hunger and misery. Four of them collapsed within the court premises, “causing the judge to flee,” according to some media reports. The Police High Command caused more outrage when it said the collapse was stage managed. Was it, when anyone could see from video clips that the boys were emaciated and sick? The prosecutor himself then asked for four of them to be discharged because they were sick. He however promised that they will be prosecuted when they recover, adding to the charge of insensitivity.

No wonder that at the weekend, most print and online newspapers used the word “Outrage” to describe the scene in Friday’s court room. Human rights groups, women societies and lawyers all rushed to condemn the spectacle. Police PRO ACP Muyiwa Adejobi was quoted as saying in a statement that the treatment of the EndHunger protesters “was in line with global best practice.” If this is global best practice, one would love to see global worst practice. Adejobi said “in managing the detention and arraignment of these suspects, the Nigeria Police has rigorously adhered to legal provisions to ensure fairness and accountability under the rule of law.” He added that “the police worked to balance justice with compassion, ensuring that each suspect’s basic rights and privileges are respected, including access to medical care and other necessary provisions.” Looks on these boys’ faces was the opposite of what Adejobi said.  

Nigeria Correctional Service [NCoS], which is not a famous hotel chain, rushed at the weekend to distance itself from the spectacle. Its PRO said “there were misleading reports making the rounds in some sections of the media purporting that the suspects were remanded in one of the adult custodial centres in Abuja. There is no iota of truth in such reports.” The prison service is not famous for its good treatment of prisoners but it nevertheless found this affair to be so scandalous that it rushed to distance itself from it, leaving the police to carry its cross.  

Compounding the PR disaster were the charges the prosecutors brought against these boys. Terrorism, arson and treasonable felony, which rank higher on the scale of Nigerian criminality than armed robbery, rape, cultism, kidnap, banditry, secessionism, Boko Haramism and Yahoo Yahoo.  Sure, what happened in some cities during the EndHunger protests of August was deplorable in the extreme, including the sacking of some police stations, looting of super markets, smashing of street lights, drinking all the milk in a yoghurt depot, carting away all the computers in a Nigeria Communications Commission skills acquisition centre just about to be commissioned, setting some public buildings on fire and pelting and injuring policemen.

It is important to punish anyone who partook in those sordid events. It is even more important to prevent a reoccurrence. It is however important not to kill a mosquito with a sledge hammer. Could what happened in August properly be described as terrorism, as we know it in Nigeria? Could we by any stretch of imagination compare what happened during the EndHunger riots to, for example, the Madallah church bombing of December 2011, the Nyanya bus bombing of 2014, the Kano Central Mosque bombing of 2014, the Maiduguri Monday Market bombing or the Federal Government College Buni Yadi student massacre of 2014, all by Boko Haram? If you charge a teenager who burnt a public building with terrorism and treason, which charge will you use when someone explodes a bomb in a crowded market square, such as the Banex Plaza bombing of 2014?

It is important not to degrade the meaning of terrorism in the psyche of Nigerians. Every crime is a crime and should attract its just punishment, but not all crimes are equal on the scale of punishment. Former President of the Nigeria Bar Association J. B. Dauda, for instance, wrote at the weekend that these boys’ crimes should have at best warranted a charge of unlawful assembly and willful destruction of public property, that they should have been charged to a magistrate’s court in the state where they committed the offence [mostly Kano and Kaduna], and that they at worst would have bagged a few months’ jail sentences, possibly less than the three months for which they have now been in detention.

Another controversial charge is treasonable felony. The last time we heard that in Nigeria was during the trial of coup plotters during the military era. What the soldiers called treason, which was an attempt to overthrow the military government, was a coup plot by military officers who obviously would use heavy arms to achieve their aim. This definition became etched in the minds of Nigerians. Between 1976 and 1997 there were five coup trials, of Dimka in 1976, Vatsa in 1986, Okar in 1990, Obasanjo/Yar’adua in 1995 and Diya/Adisa in 1997. When the Obasanjo military government was about to depart in 1979, it placed full-page adverts in all the newspapers saying Capt. Dauda Usman and Sergeant Clement Yilder were still wanted for “treason and murder,” to do with the killing of General Murtala Mohammed in 1976. Even though there were numerous student riots, two nasty anti-fuel price increase riots and innumerable inter-communal riots during the military era, involving the loss of hundreds of lives, military rulers did not charge the captured suspects with treasonable felony or even for terrorism. The only civilians that General Babangida charged with treason were the NEPA Eleven who threw the country into darkness as part of a strike.

I think it is important that the civilian administration should not lower the criminal esteem of the word treason in Nigerians’ minds. Maybe from the public relations point of view, it is better to use the lesser word insurrection. I am borrowing the phrase from the late Talban Bauchi, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir. As former Second Republic Minister of Internal Affairs, when he testified before the judicial panel that probed the Tafawa Balewa riots of 1991, he said most Nigerians do not know that throwing stones at a police station, not to mention attacking a policeman, is insurrectionary because it means you have taken up arms against the state. I had occasion to recall Dr. Tahir’s words when I read a statement last year in which an NGO said Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB’s “campaign for Biafra is peaceful.” Opening fire at a military patrol vehicle is peaceful, when Tahir said even throwing stones at a DPO’s office is insurrectionary?

That such young boys partook in destruction of public and private property and arson, if that was what they did, was despicable and the authorities must feel that they should send a message to future miscreants. They probably succeeded in that regard because youths in the northern states shunned a renewed attempt to stage another anti-hunger protest in October.  Yet, government lost the public relations contest when images of the emaciated young boys raced through all social media platforms and television screens on Friday. Partly because, to be frank, many Nigerians sympathized with the cause of the August protests, which was to protest steep increase in living costs occasioned by the steep increase in petrol prices and the steep fall of the naira against the dollar.

Equally controversial last Friday was the trial judge, Justice Obiora Egwuatu, granting the accused persons bail in the sum of ten million each with two sureties, one of which must be a Grade Level 15 civil servant, and then adjourning the case to January, by which time some of the boys might have died. I am not sure I know a Grade Level 15 civil servant who can bail me. Ten million naira when, only three days earlier, another Abuja Federal High Court judge granted House of Reps member Alex Ikwechegh bail of half a million naira for allegedly assaulting a Bolt driver. Skits quickly went viral in the social media comparing the two bail conditions.

This case has already caused much PR damage to the police, Presidency and the country. Indications at the weekend were that Attorney General of the Federation Lateef Fagbemi, who appears to have restored professionalism and lack of controversy to the office, took over the boys’ case files, is seeking an early resumption of the court case and is considering terminating it. It reminds me of the man who was freed from a US prison when he heard that new evidence had established his innocence after he had already spent 22 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He puffed at his cigar and said, “’Tis about time.”