TAKING JUSTICE TO THOSE IN NEED

It was a bleak drizzly early evening typical of Eastern Nigeria in September, but I defied the weather, the deplorable roads and muddy streets to get to my destination. Locating the house of the Onyeabu family in Ozara, Isuikwuato, Abia State was not as difficult as my maiden visit had been. This time, the one hour motorcycle ride was a little less unbearable.

From my observations, nothing much had changed about the area since my last visit about two years earlier as Student Head of ABSU Law Clinic. The roads were as bad as ever, and the area was still dominated by small buildings clustered together. But while nothing much had changed for the generality of the Ozara community, everything had changed for the Onyeabu family. After a six year wait, justice had finally found its way to their home, their son Smart* had been discharged by the Court and released from prison.

Smart Onyeabu was a pre-trial detainee at the Umuahia prisons where he had been in detention for six years on the charge of armed robbery in The State v. Onyeabu (Suit no. HS/9C/2010). He was arrested on 31st October 2006 at the age of seventeen on an allegation of armed robbery and just turned twenty one, a few months before the ABSU Law Clinic came into contact with him in the course of the Clinic’s routine pre-trial detention prison visit. The Clinic could not however do much for him since he already had legal representation, secured by his poor mother (a peasant farmer) and it would run contrary to the ethics of the legal profession in Nigeria to offer legal services to a person who already had legal counsel.

Fast forward to seven months after the initial contact, the Law Clinic met him again during a follow up visit to the prison to meet other detainees. He requested audience with us and bitterly complained about the services of the Lawyer. In fulfilment of the promise we made to him, the Clinic attended his next Court sitting at Isuikwuato High Court on the next adjourned date and confirmed his claims. From the Court records, his Lawyer had only appeared three times out of the twenty one times the case was scheduled for hearing. The Prosecution Counsel had fared only slightly better, appearing only eleven times. According to the Court Officials, on each adjourned date, the case would be called up and adjourned again owing to the absence of either Prosecution or Defence Counsel and other times due to the failure of the Prison Officials to convey him to Court for want of transport fare. Something needed to be done.

It was then I decided to take the first trip to his home town Ozara together with another Clinician, Osiri Ndukwe to meet with his family and at their request, explained to them the ethical implications and procedure for change of counsel. After ascertaining that the family could not afford legal services, the Clinic provided support to the Prisons authorities to enable him meet his subsequent Court appointments.

Following the report we submitted to the Clinic, after the amicable termination of the brief of the previous lawyer handling the case, the case file was handed over to the Clinic by the family and the Clinic promptly secured the services of a legal practitioner, Mr Emeka Okoroafor, an Alunmus of the University and also a Staff Clinician of the ABSU Law Clinic to take over the case. Thus began a battle to ensure access to justice for Smart and possibly secure his release, and you bet it did not come easy. It took a further eighteen futile attempts from the day of his arraignment to the last adjourned date, before Smart was able to make a court appearance.

The dedicated efforts of the Clinic finally yielded results on the 11th day of May 2012. In the face of apparent want of credible evidence against Ifeanyi, the Prosecution brought an application to withdraw case and the Court granted same and dismissed the charge against him, thus bringing to a happy ending, another sad episode in the long list of the failings of the Nigerian Criminal Justice System.

As I saw Smart on the occasion of this second visit beaming with smiles and doing his best to pick up the pieces of his life, a large chunk of which had been robbed from him by the criminal justice system, I knew that justice had indeed been taken to someone in need of it. This does not however detract from the fact that this episode should not have been allowed to happen in the first place.

Unfortunately Smart’s experience is not an isolated case. Indeed there are many others who have not been as ‘lucky’ as him. Chima Abasirim*, another prominent case of the ABSU Law Clinic, was on holding charge for eight years before the Law Clinic came to his rescue.

Chima was arrested by the Police, detained, arraigned before an Ideato South Magistrate Court in Imo State on the charge of conspiracy to commit armed robbery (without a co-accused) and subsequently remanded in Okigwe Prisons in December, 2003. Until the Clinic came into contact with him in 2011 during a routine Pre-trial Detention visit to Okigwe Prisons, Chima had been wallowing in detention, had not been formally charged before a High Court that has jurisdiction. In the process, he had suffered loss of job and education opportunities, in addition to being exposed to disease, physical and psychological damage and to compound his woes, his family had no knowledge of his whereabouts after his arrest as he had been unable to contacts them. Follow up visits to his community Ideato South carried by a team of clinicians comprising Chioma Nwigwe, Bethel Godfrey and Fred Ben revealed that his family indeed had no knowledge of his whereabouts, his aged father, was no longer able to earn an income but was very excited to hear about the whereabouts of his son whom he had presumed dead and assured the Clinic of his cooperation in every area he was needed. The Clinic decided to take up the case and secured free legal representation for him. Chima subsequently secured his freedom after the Clinic paid an advocacy visit to the Chief Judge of Imo State which resulted in Chima’s discharge from prison on the occasion of a Jail delivery exercise of Okigwe Prison undertaken by the Chief Judge in 2011.

These cases highlight the failings the Criminal Justice System in Nigeria but at the same showcase the potency of private involvement in enhancing access to justice in Nigeria.

The ABSU Law Clinic is one of the several Law Clinics established by the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI Nigeria) to provide access to justice for the underserved members of the community. Most of the Law Clinics also have a specialized Pre-trial Detention Prisons Clinic, dedicated to providing legal services for needy pre-trial detainees in the prisons located within the localities where the Clinics are situated. The ABSU Law Clinic has in the past three years secured the release of more than ten persons from prison. The Clinics require support of Government, Government agencies and institutions especially those involved in justice delivery, the Private Sector, Legal Practitioners, Alunmi of the Law Clinics and the general public to continue this lofty efforts at taking justice to those in need.

*The first names were changed to protect the identity of the persons.

Orji Agwu Uka is an Alumnus of ABSU Law Clinic and writes from NULAI Nigeria, Abuja