■ Clock ticks for two teenagers sentenced to death
From JOHN ADAMS, Minna
for seven years on, life has been a nightmare for the families of Garba Lawal and Jaji Mohammed of Paiko and Maitumbi communities respectively, in Niger State. Their children, Yahaya Jaji Mohammed and Dan’asabe Lawal, were arrested and slammed behind bars at a remand home in Minna, the state capital, when they were both aged 12, on charges of murder they allegedly committed at separate instances in 2011.
While Yahaya, a Fulani and son of a truck driver, was before his arrest, a student of Army Day Secondary School, Minna, Dan’asabe of Gbagyi extraction, was in JSS2 at Abubakar Dada Secondary School, Paiko, Paikoro Local Government Area of the state.
After they were picked up by the police, the duo were arraigned before the High Court 11, Minna on murder charges on conclusion of investigations, and were sent to the juvenile centre in the state capital on remand, where they were kept as awaiting trial inmates till 2014, when the court, then presided over by the incumbent Chief Judge of the state, Hon. Justice Mariam Zuokogy, convicted and pronounced a death penalty on them.
Since then, their fate hangs in the balance, as they wake up each passing day waiting for a moment the hangman would come knocking on the door to their cells, clutching a hood. For them, it’s been seven horrible years at the remand home, where they both recently clocked 18 years.
Dan’asabe’s tale is indeed, pathetic. On this ill-fated day in 2011, he was returning home from his father’s farm armed with a Dane gun for hunting in company with a cousin. Barely teens, they were reportedly playing when the gun accidentally discharged, killing Dan’asabe’s cousin instantly.
Fear-stricken, he rushed home to report the incident to his parents, but was arrested by local vigilantes who thereafter, handed him over to the police at Paiko Division, where he was held before being moved to the state command headquarters for further investigation and prosecution. And that signaled his transformation from an innocent village child to a condemned teenager on death row.
Hear him: “Though it wasn’t a deliberate act which resulted from improper handling of a gun, I have resigned myself to God. Now, I consider my fate as the will of God. On that day, it was only the two of us that went to the farm; we were playing on our way back home when the gun that I was carrying accidentally went off and the bullets hit my brother. He died on the spot.
“I immediately ran home and reported to my parents, and from there, the vigilante arrested and handed me over to the police. I regret what happened, but it was not a deliberate act. I pray that I would be pardoned by the government, and I also prayed that such thing should not happen to anyone. I want to return to school; I have been here for the past seven years and I don’t know my fate, whether I would be killed or not.”
Sorrow and anguish have become daily companions of his father, Garba Lawal, who was drenched in tears when our correspondent encountered him at his home. “Since the pronouncement of the death penalty on my son, life has never been the same in the family; it is difficult to come to terms with the reality that my teenage son is a condemned person waiting to be killed,” he said in a low whisper, his voice cracked and barely audible.
“What God says will happen, will surely come to pass, and that is exactly the case of my son. We have been praying over it and hope God will intervene. The deceased was his cousin, so there is no reason my son would want to kill his cousin if not because that is what God says will happen; but we can’t question either God or the law,” Garba said in his native Gbagyi language.
For Yahaya Jaji Mohammed who was found culpable and convicted for killing one of his friends with a knife following a squabble over a mobile telephone handset, he says but for divine intervention, he would be paying the supreme price for a sin he did not commit.
“Actually, I was not the one that killed my friend, but I was the cause of the problem which led to a free-for-all during which he was stabbed to death, and that was why I was arrested and charged to court. I have learnt my lessons; I will never involve myself in any kind of trouble again. I pray that our governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, would grant us pardon because when he came here (remand home) sometime ago, he promised to look into our case,” he said when Sunday Sun visited him in custody.
In the meantime, the clock ticks for the two teenagers as they wait to keep a date with the law. And there is yet no sign that reprieve will come their way despite reports that Governor Sani Bello had promised to look into their case.
Nasara Danmallam, the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, said he was aware of the death penalty handed the two teenagers, but said their case was presently at the discretion of the governor because they were minors while facing trial in court. “The governor did not refer the matter to the Ministry of Justice for any action. What happened was that the Chief Judge wrote to the governor that the boys have been convicted but because they are minors, they are being kept in the remand home under the governor’s pleasure, and she decided to copy the ministry.
“But I wonder why you are taking special interest in their case; they have been convicted like every other criminal, let us not be sensational about the whole matter. We work hard here and we are doing our best to keep the society safe of all criminal activities,” he remarked, when contacted by our correspondent.
However, a Minna-based legal practitioner, Barrister Adole Ochai, faulted the death penalty slammed on the two convicts, contending that the law does not permit sentencing of juveniles to death. “You cannot sentence a child or a juvenile to death; you don’t even pronounce the sentence; that is the position of the law. You can only say they are guilty of the offence and that they would be kept in a remand home pending when they will either be pardoned or the sentence carried out when they attain the age of 18 and above; the is what the law says,” he emphasized.
Will Yahaya and Dan’asabe face the hangman’s noose, or have a second chance to live? The answer is buried in the womb of time.