Shame Of A Nation …As Police Kill Citizen Over N20 Bribe

For the umpteenth time in our life as a nation- state, another innocent Nigerian citizen was felled by lethal bullets from the service weapon of a trigger- happy Police Officer. And the man died.

Police sources confirmed that the deceased, 30 year-old Onyeka Agupudo, an indigene of Okpu-Ifite in Agulu, Anaocha Local government Area of Anambra State was one of, as many as, five innocent Nigerian citizens shot dead penultimate Saturday by a Policeman, at peace time, for allegedly refusing to pay N20 bribe, at a check-point.

Media reports say, Onyeka and his friend, Onyekwelu Mojekwu (27), were on commercial motorcycles popularly called Okada when they were stopped by Mobile Policemen at Nwagu Junction in Agulu for routine search. Unfortunately, when the commercial motorcyclist, carrying Onyeka presented all his particulars, the Policeman insisted that the paper he requested for was N20 and immediately seized the Okada keys.

In the argument that ensued, the deceased, Onyeka Agupudo intervened and enquired of the Policeman why the Okada driver must pay N20 when his particulars were without blemish.

According to the deceased’s friend, Mojekwu, that question allegedly infuriated the Policeman who ordered everyone within reach to disperse and immediately shot Onyeka Agupudo to death, before shooting sporadically, in an exit strategy and in the process, killing four others.

Amidst persistent calls for Justice by well-meaning Nigerians, the Assistant Commissioner of Police (CID) of the State’s Headquarters was last Tuesday quoted as saying that the trigger-happy Police Officer had been arrested and was already facing departmental trial, after which he would be dismissed and charged for murder. He also said that the body of the deceased, allegedly taken away by the Police had been deposited at the mortuary of Regina Caeli Hospital in Awka, ostensibly for a Post-Mortem to be done by a government doctor after which the body will be released to the family.

This would not be the first time an innocent citizen would be gunned – down by Policemen at a checkpoint, which infact, is today, a glorified toll gate for extortion of funds from innocent and law-abiding road users.

Only last year, the Rivers State Ministry of Justice secured conviction of another trigger-happy Police constable who hand willfully murdered a final year medical student, and later labeled him an armed robber.

Till date it is not known why such a man who showed no respect for human life should have his protected by a dysfunctional justice system. Today, again, even before the commencement of formal trial of the Anambra Police-man some self-righteous non-governmental organizations in the name of protecting human rights have started advocating life imprisonment for the murder accused if eventually convicted, as they have often done in previous cases.

The argument of this class of Nigerians is, as always been, that condemned criminals should be spared the death penalty, and instead be given another opportunity to start a new life, an opportunity they often denied their victims

Interestingly, it was the renowned humanist, Mary Wollstone Crafts, who in one of her most quoted, letters written In Sweden, Norway and Denmark that actually fired this line of argument when she wrote: “Executions, far from being useful examples to survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify”.

Armed with this and in the guise of protecting human rights, some African-based rights ideologues last year succeeded in convincing the Commissioner, Human and Peoples Rights’ Working Group on death penalty to help persuade Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan not to authorise the execution of about 870 death row felons, as at July last year, already condemned but who have been feeding fat on tax payers’ sweat for between five and 25 years. Strangely, the commission’s Chairperson, Alpini-Guason, achieved that without any resistance from the Nigerian government.

That back-door victory followed a valid resolution by the Nigerian Senate that all prisoners on death row be made to face the consequences of the choices they made in life, theirs, being an acceptance of the moral law “he who kills by the sword must himself die by it”. In taking that decision, the Senate was convinced that all sentences were products of courts of competent jurisdiction, that indeed took a thorough look at each having in mind, Publilius Syrus’ legal caution in the Semiramis,  “it is better to risk saving a guilty person, than to condemn an innocent one, the same reason judgments of the kind are often subjected, to various appeals, with none, thus far adjudged to be a mistrial.

In clear terms, what campaigners for forgiveness for murderers appear to be telling Nigerians, is not just that the lives of murderers are more valuable, so, so important, they must also be allowed to feed fat, free of charge, on public funds while, law-abiding University graduates and others still roaming the streets in search of decent sources of livelihood, are gunned-down by trigger-happy policemen employed by the state to protect lives and property of the same citizens.

Truly, this line of argument, “reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and when sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan” as ascribed to Abraham Lincoln in Gross’s Lincoln Own Stories. How, for instance, can a Police constable willfully kill a final-year student, reading Medicine at the University of Port Harcourt at a Police check-point and thereafter, label his victim an armed robber, knowing fully well that the consequence of his action would be death, according to the laws of the land, yet unamended? And when such is pronounced, rights activists insist that the killer-constable be spared his own life, the same he denied the medical student.

If that constable had felt the full weight of the law-death, his Nwagu junction counterpart who killed the 30 year-old Onyeka Ogupudo would have thought twice before carrying out his dastardly act, over non-payment of N20 or he would have at least shot himself, thereafter.

This indeed, is why, I agree totally with Marcus Tillius Cicero who in the Pro Milone insists; “The greatest incitement to crime is the hope of escaping punishment,” and  why its direct opposite, exact justice, is preferred.

Infact, James Russel Lowell magnified the point when, in his work, Among My Books Dante he says, “Exact Justice is commonly more merciful in the long run than pity, for it tends to foster in men those stronger qualities which make them good citizens”. I agree, because if the punishment for corruption is 10 years imprisonment without option of fine, and is so implemented without fear or favour, it leaves citizens with three choices, not to steal, steal and don’t be caught or don’t steal, and the punishment being, go to jail or stay way, by not stealing.

In like manner, if the laws of the land prescribe life imprisonment, with hard labour for second degree murder convicts and capital punishment for first-degree premeditated murderers, no attempt should be made to amend the penalty, in the middle of a game of murder and man-slaughter which are of course, life imprisonment or capital punishment.

But wait! Do these rights’ advocates ever stop to ponder over what an aggrieved individual, denied justice is capable of? Do they ever imagine the pain, anguish and sense of frustration they endure living with the loss of loved ones not by HIV/AIDS but through willful murder by another? What of the constant sense of betrayal they feel seeing such murderers walk about freely, in the face of glaring injustice?

The youngman, killed by the Policeman in Anambra State still has a 74 year-old father and an aged mother who both depend on the deceased for their livelihood. What about them? What indeed is the essence of a law if it cannot be enforced? Isn’t that a loud call to anarchy? At what point should Nigeria stand up to say enough of these senseless killings? When a Senator or Governor loses his child via such killing?

I ask because in an earlier treatise on this Column, published Monday, July 26, 2010, with the title: Saving Death Row Felons (The Moral, Legal Implications), I had argued, “Those who insist that executions would not serve as deterrent to others have not said what would. Debatably however, execution of armed robbers in the 70’s and 80’s actually helped to check the increase in armed robbery cases especially when, it was decreed then, that such executions be carried out in the criminals’ homesteads.”

“Conversely, I am persuaded, it is the pampering of condemned criminals on death-row, who still feed fat at tax-payer’s expense that appears to be the real incentive to increased criminality. Or doesn’t the Holy Bible insist “suffer not a witch to live”? If, even a witch can suffer capital punishment, why shouldn’t a trigger-happy Policeman who allegedly kills a citizen for intervening in an argument over whether or not an Okada rider should pay N20 at Police checkpoint.

As I argued in that article, and still do now, I do blame the various state governors for failing to exercise their constitutional powers of ordering death row felons to face justice. When shall we stop to pick and chose which law to obey and which to disobey?

My Agony is that a very dangerous precedence is gradually playing out, one that would further embolden common criminals into full fledged killers, certain that their lives, being more valuable than their victims’, would be spared upon conviction, and who knows, even gain their freedom sooner or later, should a powerful Kith or Kin pull the right strings, along the line of justice.

To stem such drift into precipice, the Police high command should carry out a self-search and fish out the bad eggs who now see collection of between N20 – N200 as legal; let the judiciary on its part continue to dispensce justice, without fear or favour and let the state governors summon the right political will to sign execution orders based on law. And in a timely fashion.

The time to act is now because the lives they could be saving may be theirs, when, sometime in the future they’ll test life without sirens.