NULAI/OSIWA PRETRIAL PROJECT SELF REFLECTION.
I am Siyanpeter Adegoke
Rejoice, a 400 level clinician from the University of Abuja Law Clinic.
Personally, I have been able to get more acquainted with the Administration of
Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 as a result of the pre trial project. I got to see and understand the practical
division of labor involved in the legal system. This division includes how the
files are processed before they are seen as actual documents and accepted as
evidence and then taken to the Judge for final screening and after that
accepted as evidence to be used in the court. From the pre-trial project, I was
able to put into practice the little knowledge I have gathered from the
classroom such as how evidences are being tendered, how evidences are seen as
relevant or irrelevant also how the evidences are even gathered before been
tendered at all as an evidence.
From the project I have
learnt to understand and be more emphatic with people and the conditions around
them. To be more attentive to the situations around and to know why some people
get involved in some certain things they do. I was made to understand that it
may be caused by the effect of things they go through or might have gone
through in their daily livings. These has also made me to always want to know
the truth about issues and to always want to know the in depth about them and
not to be convenient or satisfied with injustice.
In the process of the pre-trial project, a
lot of issues arose and are quite necessary for immediate intervention some of
which could be seen from some detainee’s stories. For example, one of the case
handled by my team called THE REFORMERS, a detainee who was arrested in January
2018. He was a given a tricycle (keke) to use for business of picking and
dropping people. On the day he was arrested, he went to pray at the mosque and
when he came out of the mosque his keke was missing. He went to the police
station with his guarantor and at the police station he was arrested for the missing
keke. He was charged with Criminal Breach of Trust .The judge asked about the
keke and said the owner of the keke demanded that he should pay for the missing
keke. He has appeared in court 4 times. He appears in court every Tuesday. The
guarantor has guaranteed for him 8 times in the past. The keke was stolen the
same day it was given to him. He does not have a lawyer and the court did not
provide any. On the day of the second appearance in court, the owner of the
keke requested that he should be released saying that the guarantor was the one
who planned the theft, from the owner’s personal investigation. The guarantor
was released on bail. The major reason he is still in prison is because he has
nobody to stand as surety for him and his mother is deaf. During the hearing in
court on 17th April 2018 the accused fell sick and slumped down in
the court. The judge could not release him in that condition because there was
nobody to take him home and/or cater for him as his guarantor was absent.
The judge said he will probably be released after the next hearing in court if
he does not have a surety, with or without the guarantor being in court.
Quite a number, were maltreated by the police
officers during the course of arrest. See another story of a detainee who was
maltreated by the police and was made to sustain injuries:
The accused was arrested on
9th April, 2018 and was taken to court on the 10th April,
2018 and from there to the prison. He was arrested at Sabon Wuse, Niger State
on his way to Abuja. Before he left Kaduna for Abuja he branched to see his
uncle who has poultry and bought 5 chickens from him. He happened to have
travelled with the chickens with the mindset that if he found who to buy he was
going to sell them. He was given a free ride from Kaduna towards Abuja where he
resides and when he got to Sabon Wuse, the driver dropped him off at the
roundabout leading to Bwari. Around the area was a police station, and while
waiting to find a car to his destination, some police men came out and picked
him up telling him the place he was standing has had record of armed robbery,
kidnap, and killing. He was taken to the station from there and asked to
provide the receipt of the chickens he was holding. Since he could not bring
it, he was asked to give them money in order to be released. But he did not
have the money to pay so he was beaten and terribly injured by them. His ATM,
phone and everything he had on him were collected at the police station and
afterwards he was taken to a Sharia court at Sabon Wuse and charged with the
offence of theft. He pleaded not guilty. He was also asked to bring a
well-recognized person to the court for him to be set free or his uncle who
sold the fowl to him should come and identify him.
Looking at this, it offends the provision of
Section 8 of the ACJA which states that a suspect shall be accorded humane
treatment, having regard for his right to the dignity of his person.
After the conducted
interviews on the in mates, we were able to deduce that the prison condition is
not good enough for them as humans. This fact was adduced from the reason that
they are in certain conditions not accorded with some basic necessities for
their stay in the prison. Having at the back of our minds that the main essence
of the prison is to punish and avoid future crimes, it is equally very
important to note that a prison is also meant to be a rehabilitation center, to
ensure that inmates would not venture into another crime when they are been
dismissed from the prison.
A prison is supposed to be
a correctional facility which is focused at equalizing law and order in the
society. The entire inmate we interviewed averred that the health care
facility, feeding and other basic amenities are poor. Giving for example, one
of the inmates stated that he did not receive adequate health care when he
contacted toilet infection. As at time we interviewed him, he stated that he
had a boil on his anus which makes it difficult for him to sit. Another stated
that he got infected with rashes on his skin because there wasn’t enough water
to bath, in fact in his words “they give 2 plates of water for 3 people as
bathing water”. Another stated that they receive one cup of garri in a day
without sugar.
Flowing from the above, one
can deduce that the prison condition is grossly unconducive for human life.
Notwithstanding the above however, this is just a “single story” as we have not
heard from the prison officials as regards the above. Nevertheless, from our
observation we think the prison condition should be improved.
From the above the
pre-trial detainee project has helped in improving my values and morals,
interviewing of clients, record keeping, and story writing which has helped me to even build up the ones I
never even had. Through this, I got more understanding about how court
processes are been carried out and to be more inquisitive about the things in
the court processes am yet to know.
The project has been able
to affect my humane feelings in the sense that, I felt happy for the detainees
because they at least have in mind that there are people who care about them
and want to see justice done concerning the matter.
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