Ballason
Gloria Mabeiam
The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has ordered Nigeria to account for the whereabouts of five Nigerian men allegedly killed extra-judicially by the Police in Benin, Edo State.
The five – Ndubisi Christian Nnalue, Godwin Chigbo Isidienu, Chukwudi Eke, Uche Onuwuesi and Chinedu Onwe – were allegedly arrested by men of the Nigeria Police Force on October 13, 2010 and detained at Oregebmi police station, but later transferred to the Stated Criminal Investigation Department, Benin.
Relatives of the five claimed, in a suit marked: ECW/CCJ/APP/10/12, lodged before the court on 6 September 2012, that the five were ‘executed in the early morning of 16th October 2010’ while in police custody.
They said the five persons had not been seen by their families and had not received any information on their whereabouts since their arrest by men of the police.
The plaintiffs approached the court with a claim among others that the Federal Republic of Nigeria had failed to protect the rights to life, liberty, fair hearing and right to enjoy family life of the five persons who were bread winners of their homes.
The plaintiffs also claimed that the failure of Nigeria to investigate, discipline and prosecute the police officers involved violated their rights as enshrined in the African Charter on Human Rights.
They sought an order for Nigeria to conduct an independent inquiry into the disappearance of the five persons, and publish a letter of apology to the plaintiffs in five national dailies.
In a judgment last Monday, a three-man bench led by Justice Friday Chijioke Nwoke ordered the Nigerian government to conduct ‘appropriate inquiries’ into the disappearance of the five Nigerians. Other members of the panel are Justices Micah Wilkins Wright and Alioune Sall.
The court also ordered that the outcome of the inquiry be submitted to it, and gave Nigeria a three month deadline to produce the warrants of arrests of the five missing persons.
The Court also observed that Nigeria had not complied with its earlier order to produce certain documents as requested at its hearing on 9 February 2015, neither had its notice of hearing been honoured by the government.
It rejected Nigeria’s argument, in its preliminary objection, that the matter was pending before a national court, that it involved a criminal matter over which the ECOWAS court has no jurisdiction and that the rights of the plaintiffs (relatives) themselves were not violated and urged the court to dismiss the case.
The court held that the case was admissible since the substance before it pertained to occurrence of an alleged human rights violation.
On Nigeria’s argument that the interest of presumed dead persons cannot be defended before court, the court stated that “it is indeed possible to sue a state for the ‘murder or disappearance’ of human beings whose right to life the state is under obligation to protect.”
