By EMMANUEL OGEBE, Esq

Sunday Jackson a farmer who was violently attacked by a Fulani herdsman with a knife, is to die by hanging.

Despite injuries he sustained, Jackson overpowered his attacker, wresting the weapon from him and stabbed him as well following which his attacker died.

However, in a gross travesty of Justice, Jackson was sentenced to death in 2021 after being in prison for seven years. Regrettably today the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence 10 years after.

This is despite a constitutional infraction notable in the judgment of the High Court of Yola that was appealed.

The statement of facts of the Appellant’s brief of argument was that “the defendant testified for himself on the 27th day of February 2020 and the matter was adjourned to the 27th day of August 2020 for the adoption of final written addresses of counsel to the prosecution and the defence.

“Judgment was delivered on the 10th day of February 2021.”

An ordinary calculation of the time between the adoption of final addresses of counsel on August 27, 2020, and the delivery of judgment on February 10, 2021 amounts to in excess of 167 days.

The 1999 constitution was amended to afford expeditious dispensation of justice to litigants by the prescription of 90 days within which a judgment must be delivered from close of final addresses.

Judgments so rendered out of time are void or as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act provides are voidable if miscarriage of justice was occasioned thereby.

The facts of this case are a textbook case of miscarriage of justice:

In the first place Mr Sunday Jackson was held awaiting trial for capital punishment for several years – a trial that essentially comprised of no more than five sittings. Instead of a five-day trial, he spent six years in custody in a non-controversial trial in which he did not deny that the death of the deceased occurred as a result of an altercation.

Having spent all this time, Mr Jackson was further subjected to 167 days of agonizing wait for judgment as to whether he should be freed or hanged in violation of constitutional protections against such protracted delays.

Moreover Appellant’s brief raised the issue that the trial judge substituted her personal opinion for facts in the case. In other words she assumed facts not in evidence or created her own “facts” not tendered in evidence by parties.

This clearly proves that due to the prolonged period of time from close of arguments to the rendering of judgment – a whopping 167 days almost double the constitutional 90 days – the judge had confused the facts of the case resulting in a horrendous miscarriage of justice and as such it must be voided.

From Appellant’s brief of argument, it is patently clear that his constitutional right and protection of self defense was unjustly and injudiciously denied him by the trial judge.

This is a classic case that should have ended with DPP’s advice and should never have seen a court of law much less murder charge. Self-defence is the most plaintive of rights known to virtually all jurisprudence and jurisdictions universally.

Mr Jackson has thus been failed by the DPP’s office, failed by the Attorney General, failed by Justice Fatima Ahmed Tafida and failed by the Legal Aid Council and Nigeria’s justice system. At worst a charge of manslaughter should have been filed If at all.

The trial judge misinterpreted the constitution to mean appellant had the option of flight and not fight when clearly the constitution empowers a citizen to stand his ground and not flee.

Indeed, the trial judge contorted and distorted logic on its head by saying plaintiff should have run away while having admitted into evidence that he was stabbed in the leg and thus momentarily handicapped.

This internal inconsistency in the trial court’s reason and fact-finding lends further credence to the fact that the extensive effluxion of time from the constitutionally mandated 90 days to judgment delivery to 167 days prejudiced the Appellant and resulted in a grievous miscarriage of justice.

This is a sad day for Nigerians as their ability to protect themselves from violent attackers has been further diminished.

•Emmanuel Ogebe is a Washington-based International Human Rights Lawyer.