As I walked down the street, my mind was firmly fixed on my rendezvous with Yetunde. I barely noticed the cars rolling by or the ubiquitous yellow mini-buses with the conductors hanging on precariously while the drivers tried to outdo one another in both the competition to pick up passengers and the one to see who could contribute the most to the noise pollution in Lagos while using only the horns of their vehicles. I was oblivious of all these because I had thoughts only about Yetunde, my first experience of a male losing the capacity for rational thought on account of a member of the opposite sex (men didn’t feel that way about members of the same sex back then, or so we thought). My whole 15-year old world was a kaleidoscope of images of Yetunde and I floated along in an impenetrable pink haze towards our mid-day tryst. Well, impenetrable until the natural instinct for survival knocked me backed into a consciousness of my surroundings in time to hear the rumble of “Ole! Ole! Thief! Thief!” even before I saw the approaching crowd.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Anyone who grew up in Lagos in the 70s and 80s recognised that sound. The rancorous cacophony that preceded a very horrible, quite often fiery, death of an unfortunate pick-pocket or an armed robber who had lost his weapon and had been abandoned by his fleeing accomplices. I stared hard ahead, all thoughts of Yetunde completely expunged from my mind and replaced with a healthy dose of fight-or-flight adrenaline. I saw the unfortunate, bleeding and soon-to-be dead, target stumbling towards me. For a split second, I could almost swear that his eyes locked on mine, beseeching me to help him, as his mouth remained agape in an unending, silent scream. I quickly crossed to the other side of the road just as someone smashed an empty beer bottle on his head. He fell down, for the last time. The ubiquitous tires appeared as if by magic, accompanied by the bottle of petrol and matches. He was soon ablaze in the hot Lagos sun and the acrid smell of burning flesh quickly suffused the air. His executioners, young and old, gathered around laughing, pointing, and practically dancing as they watched the transformation of a living, breathing human into a charred piece of burnt offering. I never knew his offence or what he was guilty or (God forbid) innocent of!
This incident was before the days of the internet and the mobile phone. In fact, it was even before the days when David Mark declared that phones were not for the poor. The mindset of the people was however the same then as it is now, the lynch-mob mentality. The only difference between then and now is that the means of execution has changed and a much greater number of ‘executioners’ are able to participate in the virtual immolation of the accused without trial by a competent court. As a matter of fact, the Police now ‘hand over’ the accused to the court of public opinion for adjudication and judgement. While these trials-by-media have been part of the Nigerian culture of policing and crime management for a long time, the practice has grown increasingly more worrisome with the addition of the Social Media as a means of information dissemination. In the old days, parents used to warn their wards and children that they would find themselves paraded on NTA Network news if they did not desist from some particular unwholesome habit. These days, you would be extremely fortunate if your malfeasance only ended up making the 9.00pm news. The Chidinma/Ataga saga that is currently ‘trending’ is quite instructive.
While no expressly-stated law exists (at least not as far as I know) preventing or stopping the Police from this quite pointless and needless exercise of parading SUSPECTS (not convicts) before the media, the action is a clear violation of the Constitution of the country. Section 34(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal republic states and I quote: “Nobody shall be subjected to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment”. Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights states that: “Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man, particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited”. These provisions have been previously affirmed in the 2019 case Ottoh Obono vs IGP in which Justice Aneke awarded the sum of N20million against the Police. Yet the practice goes on unabated. Suspects arrested for various crimes are paraded on Television and their supposed crimes reeled out while “INVESTIGATIONS ARE STILL ONGOING” (words of the Police)! Sheer ludicrousness! And aside from the entertainment value or ego-masturbation of the Police, what do these parades actually achieve? Nothing, except to provide ‘content’ for today’s rumour-mongers masquerading as online publications.
The case of Chidinma-Ataga has brought this unwholesome practice into clear relief as the Police have plunged new depths in asininity. While the facts of the case were still very far from being fully established (as admitted by the Police themselves), they rushed to parade the suspect before the media. She was made to answer questions from what was essentially a modern- day lynch mob and give answers on television that amounted to confessions without the benefit of a lawyer present. Newsmen (if I may call them, that considering the low cerebral quality of their questions) badgered her with questions which she had to give answers to without the benefit of legal Counsel. Within minutes, the news conference was on the air and on hundreds of millions of devices around the world, while “INVESTIGATIONS ARE STILL ONGOING”. She made unsubstantiated claims, without corroborative evidence, and which the Police had not verified, that further tarnished the image and reputation of the deceased victim while trying to justify her own actions.
If we operated a jury system in Nigeria, the actions of the Police are definite grounds for a mistrial ruling whenever the case finally makes it to court. As it is now, it can only be hoped that a fair trial (both for the accused and the victim) can still be attained despite the plethora of conspiracy theories and outright fabrications that have emerged since the ill-thought Police action. Needless damage has already been done, whatever the outcome of the trial. This should not be so. Our love for salacious gossip and inordinate lewdness should not be elevated to official crime management tactics. There is no reason why suspects should be made to face media trials while investigations are ongoing. I have never seen this done in any other part of the world where people arrested for crimes and who are still innocent until proven guilty by a competent court are made to face interrogation by the media while in handcuffs and leg-chains. There is no greater evidence of our distance from being a civilized society than this.
Finally, I wonder what the purpose and usefulness of Law bodies like the Nigerian Bar Association and Body of Benchers are if they cannot speak up and take action to stop this anomaly from continuing. How do you go into court to represent a suspect who has already been tried and convicted in the media in flagrant violation of his or her constitutionally guaranteed rights and in total breach of the African Charter on Human and Peoples rights? What is the reason, beyond self-aggrandizement that the members employ tactics that even our politicians would be envious of every couple of years to become members of the Executive if they cannot stand up and resist obvious denigration of the values they are sworn to protect? Maybe its about time they begin to question their own relevance.