Godwin Onyeacholem - Kano blasphemy killing: Where is justice for Bridget Agbahime?
People who murder
others allegedly for blasphemy in Nigeria - a secular, multi-ethnic and
multi-cultural country - are never brought to justice. Yet without justice
there can never be peace. And the absence of peace means there is no unity. For
how long will this situation last?
Indeed, for any keen
observer of governance in post-colonial Africa, Nigeria must be a very
depressing address. And this is more so for the simple reason that no country,
in many people’s reckoning, has done so much as Nigeria in consistently
consciously making itself an object of perpetual ridicule in the comity of
civilized countries of the world. That explains why those who argue that
Africa’s backwardness is a function of Nigeria’s pathetic leadership vision
cannot be entirely wrong after all. Even Nigeria’s own citizens, who look up to
their country to provide the required domestic and international leadership,
have continued to be utterly disappointed and embarrassed in very many ways.
Take for example the
case of Bridget Agbahime. On June 2, the 74-year-old utensils trader from Imo
State was brutally attacked and killed at Kofar Wambai Market in Kano by a
Muslim mob who accused her of blasphemy. According to reports, she was pounced
upon and murdered after she refused to allow a Muslim man perform ablution in
front of her shop. As expected, the circumstances of Bridget’s death sparked
outrage within secular, Christian and progressive Muslim circles across the
country and beyond, provoking once again that troubling question as to when
these ignorant killings in the northern part of the country in the name of
Allah would come to an end.
On behalf of President
Muhammadu Buhari, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina,
promptly issued a statement describing the incident as “sad and regrettable.”
In the usual tone of such statements, it urged the people not to take the laws
into their hands and affirmed that justice would be done in the matter.
On his part, Governor
of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, also called a meeting attended by prominent
personalities including state chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria
(CAN), Rev. Ransome Bello, the husband of the deceased, Pastor Mike Agbahime,
of Deeper Life Bible Church, Igbo leaders in Kano, Islamic scholars and
security agencies. At that meeting the governor named the prime suspect in that
heinous crime as one Alhaji Dauda. He said the killing was “unjustifiable” and
that justice would be done in accordance with the provisions of the Nigerian
constitution.
The police
corroborated the governor as regards Dauda. Olabisi Okuwobi, Assistant
Commissioner of Police who was then Force Public Relations Officer, issued a
statement saying two key suspects, Dauda Ahmed and Zubairu Abdullahi, were
already in custody and would be speedily prosecuted. Added Okuwobi: “In order to ensure a
diligent and professional investigation the Inspector General of Police has
directed the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of the Force Criminal
Investigation and Intelligence Department (FCIID) to deploy the Homicide
Section of the Department to immediately take over the investigation of the
case and ensure a meticulous investigation and speedy prosecution of arrested
suspects.”
Apart from Dauda and
Zubair, the investigation led to the arrest of three more suspects namely
Abdulmumeen Mustafa, Abdullahi Abubakar and Musa Abdullahi. The five suspects
were charged at the Kano Magistrate court on a four-count allegation of
allegedly inciting disturbance, culpable homicide, joint act and mischief.
And five months into
the incident, more than enough time for Nigerians and the Agbahime family to
have arrived at a closure on that act of bestiality, what did the people get?
Just when they were bracing for a firm prosecution that would lead to
conviction, they were treated to the familiar abracadabra that is peculiar to
the country’s legal system. In what must go down as a classic judicial swindle,
the chief magistrate, Muhammad Jibril, acting on the advice of the Attorney
General of Kano State, discharged the suspects and terminated the case.
According to the Kano
State government, “There is no case to answer as all the suspects are
innocent.” Really? And this from a State whose governor had called the killing
“unjustifiable” and vowed to go all out to ensure that the culprits are treated
in line with the country’s laws? Where is the justice Buhari promised in his
reaction to Bridget Agbahime’s killing? What the Kano government did to this
case is not the kind of thing that should happen in a government that professes
“change.”
Surely now, the
widower, Mike Agbahime, and the entire Agbahime family must be heartbroken. It
would not be surprising to hear that the man has suddenly developed some
serious health problem, for this is the sort of perversion of justice that led
to the death of Justice Atinuke Ige, whose husband, Bola Ige, was assassinated
at their Bodija residence in Ibadan in 2001. Sixteen months later, the woman
died from a heartbreak resulting from glaring manipulation of justice by state
prosecutors who deliberately messed up the trial of suspects arrested in
connection with her husband’s gruesome murder.
This is not the first
time blasphemy killings have occured in the northern part of the country. In
1995, in the same Kano, a young Igbo trader, Gideon Akaluka, was beheaded by
Muslim fanatics who stormed the police station where he was being held for
alleged blasphemy. The head was hoisted on a stick and used as trophy which the
mob carried round the streets in a chilling victory parade. There was neither
arrest nor prosecution.
In 2007 Christiana
Oluwasesin, a teacher and mother of two, was beaten to death by her own
students at Government Day Secondary School, Gandu, Gombe State. The sixteen
suspects arrested in connection with the crime were released without any
charge. In addition to the
Agbahime case, this year has also witnessed blasphemy killings in Talata Mafara
in Zamfara State, and Padongari in Rafi local government area of Niger State.
In these two cases as in others, not one person was arrested and made to face
the law.
Suffice to say that
blasphemy killers in Nigeria, a secular, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural
country are never brought to justice. Yet without justice there can never be
peace. And the absence of peace means there is no unity. Agbahime’s case
happens to be the first time an attempt, no matter how idle and unenthusiastic,
has been made to arraign alleged perpetrators of blasphemy execution.
But against all
expectations, the case has decidedly been bungled by the government which ought
to protect citizens, messed up in a manner that powerfully vindicates those who
insist that Nigeria is not yet a nation, that much as the people desire to live
together as one, there is an urgent need for a roundtable meeting of its
various stakeholders to fashion out a modern nation by agreeing on terms for
the people’s coexistence. Call it whatever name, Nigerians have to work towards
arriving at an acceptable framework that determines the basis of a much desired
unity in a re-invented country.
A cornerstone of that
framework must be justice for all, regardless of your background or where you
come from. As it is now, no matter what any Nigerian leader at whatever level
preaches about Nigeria, with the way they have been denied justice, the
Agbahime family, or the children of Oluwasesin, for instance, will never, ever
feel that they belong to this country.
But this government
can still redeem itself and that is what it should do by revisiting the
Agbahime case and making sure those who needlessly killed that woman are truly
punished. Otherwise, not only that this country will continue to be a laughing
stock in the eyes of the world, one would be persuaded to queue behind those
who still argue with candid vehemence that we are yet to have a country.
