The Supreme Court of Nigeria has upheld the death sentence of one Sunday Jackson of Adamawa State by hanging for murder.
According to the report, sometime in 2015, Jackson, 29, a farmer and student from Dong Community in Demsa LGA of Adamawa, was working on his farm in Kodomti Community in Numan LGA when a herdsman, Buba Ardo Bawuro, casually herded his animals into his farm to feed on his crops.
When Jackson challenged him, he pulled out a knife and attacked the farmer. In spite of his injuries, Jackson was able to overpower him, seized the knife and stabbed him in return, and the attacker later died from his wounds.
Jackson was arrested and tried in Yola High Court for culpable homicide, punishable with death under Section 211 of the penal code.
He admitted that his attacker died as a result of the duel, but he said he was not guilty of any offence.
The prosecution urged the trial judge, Fatima Ahmed Tafida, to convict Jackson based on his confessional statement. But Jackson’s lawyer countered, praying the court to discharge and acquit his client because he acted in self-defence.
In February 2021, the judge handed out a curious judgment. She held that because Jackson had confessed that he killed the herdsman, he too must die by hanging.
That the farmer only defended himself from being killed was of no significance to her.
The judge reasoned, rather strangely, that he should have fled the scene the moment he gained the advantage over his attacker.
The question one would naturally ask is, how could he have fled when he had already been stabbed in the leg, among other places?
This fact was made known to the judge, yet she still gave the verdict that Jackson must die through the hangman’s noose.
Did it occur to the trial judge that an injured person, no matter at what point of his body the injury is, stands no chance of escaping from an aggressive attacker? Or is the judge saying that Jackson should also have abandoned what rightly belongs to him to an intruder?
For the record, it must be pointed out that for a capital punishment offence that ought to have been tried within one week where the defendant had owned up straight off that the assailant died from the affray, Jackson was kept in custody for six years before the trial started.
Second, it has to be mentioned that in violation of the law, this judgment was delivered well after the statutory 90 days within which judgments must be delivered after the adoption of the final addresses by lawyers to both parties. What this means is that this judgment ought not to stand at all under normal circumstances.
By upholding the trial court’s death sentence on Jackson, the country’s highest court criminalises self-defence.
Of course, at the time of this conviction, President Muhammadu Buhari was in power, and his administration’s bias towards killer herders was shamelessly public knowledge.
It’s on record that for all of his eight years in office not even one killer-herder was arrested, let alone prosecuted or jailed.
Just like the judge, Buhari even once rebuked host communities whose members were killed by their thousands for not being good hosts.
The warped logic of this judge also aligns with the pathetic admonition of Femi Adesina, President Buhari’s media aide, who similarly advised host communities to run from their ancestral land rather than face being killed.
What Adesina did not tell us was if after abandoning their ancestral lands, the attackers, with their thinly-veiled expansionist ambitions come after them again in their new location, what do they do?
Buhari’s administration spent eight agonising years rationalizing evil and the criminal enterprise of his kiths and kin. They got away with mass murders and wanton destruction across the country.
Buhari’s government did everything they could to ensure the safety and comfort of cattle at the expense of human lives.
That Buhari and his cohorts got away with these atrocities speaks a lot to the state of our country and its justice system and institutions.
That said, we can only join other well-meaning people all over the world to plead with Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, to kindly exercise his constitutional duties and prerogative of mercy to pardon Sunday Jackson.
This country can ill-afford another round of avoidable crises. High premium must be placed on all human lives in Nigeria. It’s not about religion, tribe or political affiliation but about justice and fair play. It’s about equality before the law and the rule of law.
What kind of logic allows a person to invade another’s premises with arms and forcefully dispossess him of his possession and he gets away with it? What kind of justice says that when one is attacked he should run even when he can defend his life? Is it not common knowledge that the average Fulani herdsman sees himself as being above the law?
And for all the justices up to Supreme Court who all reasoned that even when attacked and injured within his own premises, Jackson should lose his life along with his attacker just because he managed to overpower his assailant, can they in clear conscience say justice was served?
What now happens to the hundreds of thousands who have been killed by these murderers? Is there any hope of justice for them?
What will happen to the farmers whose crops have continually been invaded by these killers and their sources of livelihoods and their lands taken away from them? Should they still keep running while their attackers keep killing them?
Who needs to be a lawyer to know that the worst Jackson should have been charged with is manslaughter and not murder? Why are armed robbers charged with murder and not manslaughter or are we saying if this were a robbery case, the victim risks being sentenced to death for murder?
Finally, when will these mindless and wanton destruction stop and who will bring them to justice? Are killer Fulani herders above the law?
