Indeed, for any keen observer of
governance in post-colonial Africa, Nigeria must be a very depressing address.
And this is more so for the simple reason that no country, in many people’s
reckoning, has done so much as Nigeria in consistently consciously making
itself an object of perpetual ridicule in the comity of civilized countries of
the world.
That explains why those who argue that Africa’s backwardness is a
function of Nigeria’s pathetic leadership vision cannot be entirely wrong after
all. Even Nigeria’s own citizens, who look up to their country to provide the
required domestic and international leadership, have continued to be utterly
disappointed and embarrassed in very many ways.
Take for example the case of Bridget
Agbahime. On June 2, the 74-year-old kitchen utensils trader from Imo State was
brutally attacked and killed at Kofar Wambai Market in Kano by a Muslim mob who
accused her of blasphemy. According to reports, she was pounced upon and murdered
after she refused to allow a Muslim man perform ablution in front of her shop.
As
expected, the circumstances of Bridget’s death sparked outrage within secular,
Christian and progressive Muslim circles across the country and beyond,
provoking once again that troubling question as to when these ignorant killings
in the northern part of the country in the name of Allah would come to an end.
On behalf of President Muhammadu
Buhari, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, promptly issued a
statement describing the incident as “sad and regrettable.” In the usual tone
of such statements, it urged the people not to take the laws into their hands
and affirmed that justice would be done in the matter.
On his part, Governor of Kano State,
Abdullahi Ganduje, also called a meeting attended by prominent personalities
including state chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev.
Ransome Bello, the husband of the deceased, Pastor Mike Agbahime, of Deeper
Life Bible Church, Igbo leaders in Kano, Islamic scholars and security
agencies. At that meeting the governor named the prime suspect in that heinous
crime as one Alhaji Dauda. He said the killing was “unjustifiable” and that
justice would be done in accordance with the provisions of the Nigerian
constitution.
The Police corroborated the governor as
regards Dauda. Olabisi Okuwobi, Assistant Commissioner of Police who was then
Force Public Relations Officer, issued a statement saying two key suspects,
Dauda Ahmed and Zubairu Abdullahi, were already in custody and would be
speedily prosecuted. Added Okuwobi: “In order to ensure a diligent and
professional investigation the Inspector General of Police has directed the
Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of the Force Criminal
Investigation and Intelligence Department (FCIID) to deploy the Homicide
Section of the Department to immediately take over the investigation of the
case and ensure a meticulous investigation and speedy prosecution of arrested
suspects.”
Apart from Dauda and Zubair, the
investigation led to the arrest of three more suspects namely Abdulmumeen
Mustafa, Abdullahi Abubakar and Musa Abdullahi. The five suspects were charged
at the Kano Magistrate court on a four-count allegation of allegedly inciting disturbance,
culpable homicide, joint act and mischief.
And five months into the incident, more
than enough time for Nigerians and the Agbahime family to have arrived at a
closure on that act of bestiality, what did the people get? Just when they were
bracing for a firm prosecution that will lead to conviction, they were treated
to the familiar abracadabra that is peculiar to the country’s legal system. In
what must go down as a classic judicial swindle, the chief magistrate, Muhammad
Jibril, acting on the advice of the Attorney General of Kano State, discharged
the suspects and terminated the case.
According to the Kano State government,
“There is no case to answer as all the suspects are innocent.” Really? And this
from a State whose governor had called the killing “unjustifiable” and vowed to
go all out to ensure that the culprits are treated in line with the country’s
laws? Where is the justice Buhari promised in his reaction to Bridget
Agbahime’s killing? What the Kano government did to this case is not the kind
of thing that should happen in a government that professes “change.”
Surely now, the widower, Mike Agbahime,
and the entire Agbahime family must be heartbroken. It would not be surprising
to hear that the man has suddenly developed some serious health problem, for
this is the sort of perversion of justice that led to the death of Justice
Atinuke Ige, whose husband, Bola Ige, was assassinated at their Bodija
residence in Ibadan in 2001. Sixteen months later, the woman died from a
heartbreak resulting from glaring manipulation of justice by state prosecutors
who deliberately messed up the trial of suspects arrested in connection with
her husband’s gruesome murder.
This is not the first time blasphemy
killings would occur in the northern part of the country. In 1995, in the same
Kano, a young Igbo trader, Gideon Akaluka, was beheaded by Muslim fanatics who
stormed the police station where he was being held for alleged blasphemy. The
head was hoisted on a stick and used as trophy which the mob carried round the
streets in a chilling victory parade. There was neither arrest nor prosecution.
In 2007 Christiana Oluwasesin, teacher
and mother of two, was beaten to death by her own students at Government Day
Secondary School, Gandu, Gombe State. The sixteen suspects arrested in
connection with the crime were released without any charge. In addition to the
Agbahime case, this year has also witnessed blasphemy killings in Talata Mafara
in Zamfara State, and Padongari in Rafi local government area of Niger State.
In these two cases as in others, not one person was arrested and made to face
the law.
Suffice to say that blasphemy killers
in Nigeria, a secular, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country are never
brought to justice. Yet without justice there can never be peace. And the
absence of peace means there is no unity. Agbahime’s case happens to be the
first time an attempt, no matter how idle and unenthusiastic, has been made to
arraign alleged perpetrators of blasphemy execution.
But against all expectations, the case
has decidedly been bungled by the government which ought to protect citizens, messed
up in a manner that powerfully vindicates those who insist that Nigeria is not
yet a nation, that much as the people desire to live together as one, there is
an urgent need for a roundtable meeting of its various stakeholders to fashion
out a modern nation by agreeing on terms for the people’s coexistence. Call it
whatever name, Nigerians has to work towards arriving at an acceptable
framework that determines the basis of a much desired unity in a re-invented
country.
A cornerstone of that framework must be
justice for all, regardless of your background or where you come from. As it is
now, no matter what any Nigerian leader at whatever level preaches about
Nigeria, with the way they have been denied justice, the Agbahime family, or
the children of Oluwasesin, for instance, will never, ever feel that they
belong to this country.
But this government can still redeem
itself and that is what it should do by revisiting the Agbahime case and making
sure those who needlessly killed that woman are truly punished. Otherwise, not
only that this country will continue to be a laughing stock in the eyes of the
world, one would be persuaded to queue behind those who still argue with candid
vehemence that we are yet to have a country.
Godwin Onyeacholem is a journalist. He
can be reached on gonyeacholem@gmail.com
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