Daily Trust - the online edition

The Nigerian judiciary has again earned for itself the confidence of the Nigerian people when the Ikeja High Court brought an end to the prolonged trial of the former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Ishaya Bamaiyi, who has been standing trial along with four others in the last 8 years over an alleged attempt to murder the publisher of The Guardian newspaper, Mister Alex Ibru and the former Delta State Commissioner for Sports Mister Isaac Porbeni in February 1996.

Bamaiyi was arrested and detained in 1999 after facing the Special Investigation Panel (SIP) set up by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He was subsequently sent to Lagos where he was first arraigned before the Ikeja Magistrate’s Court and later before the Lagos High Court. Those arraigned along with Bamaiyi include the former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to Late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha; former Zamfara State Military Administrator Col Jibrin Bala Yakubu (rtd); former Lagos State Police Commissioner James Danbaba; and Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Mohammed Rabo Lawal.

Soon after their arraignment, counsel to the accused persons filed several applications in the bid to stall the trial. Sequel to the delay strategies employed by the defense counsel, the charges against the accused persons were amended three times, which ultimately led to the transfer of the case to the High Court where the incumbent Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Adetula Alabi, was the presiding judge. The case had to be re-assigned again to Justice Olubunmi Oyewole when Justice Alabi was accused of demanding for a $10 million bribe before the accused could be granted bail. Alabi was however absolved of the bribery accusation after investigations by the National Judicial Commission (NJC).

The decision by General Bamaiyi in the course of the prosecution to have his trial separated from that of the other suspects with whom he had been standing a joint trial was indeed a wise one, which in the end has paid him off. It is our opinion that the trial from the on-set should have been allowed to progress in its natural course even if the counsel or any of the accused persons had suspected any manipulation of or interference in the court proceedings by any interested person or group. The resort to delay tactics by counsel to the accused was unethical. Bamaiyi’s faith in the presiding judge and in the judicial process has earned him the speedy trial and disposal of his case.

While we call on counsels, defense as well as prosecution, to abstain from using technicalities that would hinder the speedy trial of suspects, we equally urge the courts to ensure that justice is never seen to be delayed because delayed justice has always been seen as denied justice. We similarly appeal to the judges presiding over numerous cases of suspects whose trial have lasted longer than they should in their courts to hasten to dispose of them. Some suspects have remained in detention in various prisons across the country awaiting trial for periods longer than the jail term they would have served even if they had been convicted of the crime(s) for which they were charged to court. We also call on the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the legal Aid Council and similar agencies to visit prisons on a regular basis not only to decongest them but also to ensure that the right of citizens to justice is neither denied nor usurped.