This day in history : Court Delivers Judgement In Nnamdi Kanu's Trial
Cornelius Hamelberg
Cornelius Hamelberg
It was the Day of Judgement. Dumbfounded, I watched the whole show on TV.
I don’t know anything about “Count 7” or about counts 1 -6, but according to concerned Pan African's understandings it was clearly an open and shut case
And, by the way, Eichmann was kidnapped and brought to justice
Ideally, Nnamdi Kanu would have liked, maybe even loved the presiding judge, if the presiding judge, Justice James Kolawole Omotosho had addressed him respectfully as follows:
“ Sir, you have not done anything wrong.
And the soldiers who are dead and gone
If only we could bring back one
Sir, there is no written or unwritten law or any aspect of the Nigerian Constitution that you have violated, moreover, this Nigerian court cannot claim to have any jurisdiction over you, no matter how many crimes you may have committed and no matter how many people may have been killed and maimed as a direct result of your incitements broadcast on your Radio Biafra, to kill, maim and destroy law-abiding Nigerian citizens. You are now free to go Sir, to walk out of this court as a free man, and of course, to continue as before. At your own discretion you may even raise many disciples !”
Thus encouraged, such a judgement would have been seen as a green light and given rise to a thousand more Nnamdi Kanus and Simon Ekpas and many others of those clans that would like to see the birth of their own cherished ethnic republics surely leading to the total demise, fragmentation, dismemberment and demolition of what was once known as our one and only Federal Republic of Nigeria, the insurgency agendas of those wanna break away tribal, mini-republics adding to the mayhem of insecurity and lawlessness in the country, thereby giving more headaches and heartaches to the body politic and the concerned citizens and friends of Nigeria who are currently complaining that the Nigerian authorities are not doing enough to quell terrorism, lawlessness and banditry, some even advocating that such citizens who refuse to be law-abiding and on the contrary are taking up arms against the Nigerian military and the Nigerian law enforcement police agencies should be wiped out - as a result of which since very long ago, as a consequence, e.g. the aforementioned Nnamdi Kanu would have been wiped out of existence and would not have been facing any kind of trial in a Nigerian Court of Law.
Post the sentence to life imprisonment for the terrorist-charged separatist insurgent Nnamdi Kanu, there continues to be a deafening silence in the USA Africa Dialogue series, thus far. Perhaps Nigerian nationals and the various Nigerian Diaspora people including the legal brains among them don’t want to do any post-mortem on the long awaited verdict, for fear of being misunderstood, or accused of ethnic bias, sympathy, chauvinism, or this and that ethnic aspiration, or perhaps it is the usual silence that precedes the deluge, the kind of deluge that once upon a time was accompanied by thunder, smoke and ash ( I almost wrote hash ) and bolts of lightning that were so frightening at Mt. Sinai that the 600,000 that were assembled at the foot of that humble mountain pleaded with Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear, but let God not speak with us lest we die."
I suppose that there’s also the kind of silence that precedes the fierce release of a bomb - as in Cassandra's Answer or on a more epic plane, the devastating release of the Almighty’’s pent up WRATH, as happened with Sodom and Gomorrah being reduced to brimstone and ash
I have prefaced what I’m about to say with the reference to Mt Sinai, to bring to our attention these two poetically charged ideas : humility - HUMILITY , that the Almighty appointed Moses, who according to the Torah, “ was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” and that the Almighty also chose the foot of that humble mountain as the scene of his revelations to his chosen nation ( never mind replacement theology) and secondly , as every Bible-thumper knows, and as indeed every pious and even not so pious Jew recites every morning after washing his/ her hands, Reishit chochma yirat Adonai (The beginning of wisdom is fear of The Lord
Not that any of us can hope to excel the Prophet Moses with regard to humility
Verily, I’ve read the transcripts of the trial of Madiba Nelson Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta, the Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial, the trial of Steve Biko, and followed live on television, the O J Simpson Trial , and the most interesting of all, live on TV Bush v Gore ( in which, in my opinion, Bush had a better lawyer) however, the Nnamdi Kanu debacle has been the most bizarre of the aforementioned, largely due to the antics of the defendant ( at some point during the Chicago Eight trial Bobby Seale was gagged ) I’ve read cover to cover David Dellinger’s seminally impressive Revolutionary Nonviolence - and by the way, there are other books worthy of consultation , about Revolutionary Nonviolence, but with regard to Kanu’s arrogant fits, tantrums, and uncontrolled outbursts, I’ve tried to imagine how he would have fared in an Israeli court of law, charged with several counts of TERRORISM, incitement to terrorism etc. and with all the overwhelmingly incriminating evidence mounted against him, following the loss of so many lives - as the Israelis would say,” with blood on his hands”. By contrast let us pause to imagine or follow the gospel account of the trial of the Son of God in the court of Pontus Pilate the presiding judge, that Jesus didn't start shouting that the court had no jurisdiction or that Pontus Pilate was an ignoramus who didn’t know the law ( a double pun there) But on the other hand, there is only one Jesus.
If it’s true that Kanu has now been sent off to a prison in Sokoto, I assume from where it could be a little more difficult for him to abscond - since the question of jumping bail again is out of the question for the simple reason that he has not been granted bail this time round - not even for $1 trillion. And which of his billionaire fans would be willing to take that kind of risk? For what? To purchase Kanu’s “freedom”? I thought the slave-trading era was long over, not long overdue. And if - God forbid - some fellow insurgents managed to kidnap him from the alleged Alcatraz or San Quentin up there, and demanded e.g. $ 1 trillion in ransom money -an impossible sum for any normal son of a gun? Surely, the Sokoto prison is a much better place for Mr. Kanu than e.g. the Kirikiri Prison in Lagos?
I’m feeling very sorry about the kind of psychological stress Nnamdi Kanu must be experiencing about his very uncertain future, during the 90 day period he has been given to appeal during which time he will be waiting for the sentence to be confirmed ( ratified) or squashed. In my view - and no lawyer or judge am I, from the very beginning he should have either pleaded insanity -evidenced by his erratic behaviour, or appealed for mercy and leniency using all the oratory and rhetoric skills available to mortal man, perhaps even addressing his Lord in his mother-tongue Igbo. However it would seem that knowing how hopeless his chances of winning such a case was, that piece of theatre at the court with him dismissing his legal team must have been prearranged, his lawyers must have convinced him or prevailed upon him that the best way forward was for him would be for him to dismiss them on the grounds that there was really no legal case against him - according to the Nigerian Lawbooks and the Nigerian Constitution.
So far I have only read Bukola Oyeniyi's reaction which may or may not tally with Portia’s “The quality of mercy is not strained” - you be the judge:
Bukola Oyeniyi
“I must register my profound disappointment with one of Justice Omotosho’s central premises in declining to impose the death penalty—his invocation of Christ’s call for mercy. Such reasoning, however well-intentioned, stands on a precarious foundation. Nigeria is not a theocracy; neither the Constitution nor any of the statutory provisions governing our land derives its authority from religious doctrine. Jurisprudence in a secular republic cannot be made to bend before confessional sentiment, no matter how noble that sentiment may appear.
What renders the court’s reliance on Christian ethics even more troubling is the stark contradiction it presents when weighed against the lived reality of Kanu’s victims. The vast majority of those murdered in the violence he orchestrated were themselves Christians—men and women who pleaded for their lives, many invoking the name of Jesus as they begged for mercy. Their assailants, acting under Kanu’s directives, offered them none. They extinguished their lives without hesitation or remorse. If Christian mercy was nowhere to be found when these citizens faced their last, agonizing moments, on what basis should it now enter the judicial calculus on behalf of the architect of their suffering?
This raises a deeply unsettling question: having long rejected claims—particularly during the debates surrounding the adoption of Sharia law in eleven northern states—that Nigerian law is merely a veil over Christian norms, has Justice Omotosho’s reasoning not inadvertently given credence to the very argument we refuted? By importing theological considerations into a matter that is strictly constitutional and criminal, he blurs the essential line between state and faith.
I acknowledge, as he rightly noted, that the death penalty is increasingly disfavored in many parts of the world. Yet it remains within the ambit of Nigerian law, and there are crimes so grave, so corrosive to the very fabric of society, that they fit squarely within its scope. The atrocities committed at Kanu’s behest belong to that category. In this case, the demands of justice far outweigh any appeal to sentiment, religious or otherwise. “
Cornelius Hamelberg
In that quoted excerpt Dr Bukola Oyeniyi is making what sounds like an academic point, based on the idea that “Nigeria is not a theocracy” - and , utterly devoid of any kind of what Buddhism ( another religion) emphasises as compassion, he drives that idea to what he believes is its logical conclusion :The Death Penalty he says, because “the demands of justice far outweigh any appeal to sentiment, religious or otherwise”, thereby pitting him at loggerheads with the likes of Danny Glover
To buttress his argument he could possibly seek solace from the Israel State apparatus also not a theocracy and likewise bedevilled by every textbook definition of terrorism, to the extent that they seem to be on the verge of acting in tandem with Dr. Oyeniyi’s perceptions : https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BpaW1BW7Q/?
Read more: http://en.royanews.tv/news/65078
It should be interesting to know if Dr Bukola Oyeniyi thinks that should also be the fate of Terrorists and terrorism advocates in Nigeria ….
Because Dr. Oyeniyi gives me the impression that he himself is a strong Christian, I suppose that the sentiments expressed in this Roman Catholic hymn God of Mercy and Compassion - must touch him deeply.
“God of mercy and compassion,
Look with pity upon me.
Father, let me call Thee Father,
’Tis Thy child returns to Thee.
Jesus, Lord, I ask for mercy;
Let me not implore in vain;
All my sins—I now detest them,
Never will I sin again.
By my sins I have deserved
Death and endless misery;
Hell, with all its pains and torments,
And for all eternity. “
Which does not mean to say that the death penalty is forbidden in Roman Catholic territories.
I think that The Death Penalty was abolished in post-Apartheid South Africa because, among other reasons there was also the factor that you start executing white-skinned people in great numbers, for crimes against humanity and sooner or later you’d be hearing from Trump's White House that there’s a genocide going on, and if the miscreants happen to be Christians you’d have Trump foaming at the mouth that there’s a Genocide of Christians going on in post-Apartheid South Africa, eventually - predictably resulting in sanctions, boycotts and even the possibility of a military invasions to stop any further atrocities…
Some strong words about the situation : https://www.youtube.com/@okochahappymarcel
Cornelius Hamelberg
When it comes to understanding compassion, there’s always The Judgement of Solomon
Also Brecht :The Judgement of Solomon
A peaceful dissolution or divorce, yes, but the idea of dismemberment , murder, segregation etc.is always reprehensible
It’s remarkable that Kanu’s sentencing was not even reported on the TV Channel BBC News' “Focus on Africa” , a half hour program broadcast Monday to Friday ….
Nobody, maybe apart from him (Okwu Kanu) thought that it was going to be easy when he would finally be given his day in court. When that day finally arrived, and the whole world was watching, most unfortunately, the leader of the proscribed IPOB did not show the expected charisma or equanimity .
Instead, he decided to show some real colour - his real colours (I almost wrote “he decided to show some real courage”) by acting like a real hooligan, right there in the courtroom, insisting that he had no regard for the law, in fact repeating re-pe-ti-ti-ve-ly and with utter disdain, that there was no Nigerian Law by which he could be legally and properly tried, that the law under which he was being tried ( I almost wrote “ fried”) was obsolete, and before he was finally, unceremoniously bundled out of the courtroom - it’s all there in the video - he was still theatrically or genuinely outraged, shouting, raving and ranting that the presiding judge was an ignoramus and an idiot who didn’t know the law.
Na Wa o !
As Dr Oohay would say, Nnamdi Kanu too,
it AIN’t easy, as in that reggae song
“Most everybody's got seed to sow
It ain't always easy for a weed to grow, oh no
He don't hoe the row for no one
For sure he's always missing
Something’s never quite right
Ah, but who would want to listen
To you, kissing his existence good night?” ( Walking Man )
Hadn’t the self-identified defendant ever heard of something known as Contempt of Court?
I enquired from Google, For how many years imprisonment can someone be sentenced for aggravated contempt of court?
Is that how Kanu would have behaved in a British, American or Saudi Arabian Court of Law?
In the latter, of course, they would have surely made some halal kebabs out of him.
Both before and after he dramatically sacked his lawyers, I had thought that like a dignified Nelson Mandela or an eloquent Steve Biko he was going to make sure that his ideology was going to be put on trial in order to showcase some of that and his motivations , and to showcase some of his primitive ideas about the uses and misuse of brute force, however - as the rude & uncouth people would say, he chose to fkkk it all up
At the start of the proceedings in the courtroom that day, the first thing that struck me was the wigs the lawyers were wearing, and the discomforting thought that after all these years Nigeria was still proudly following the precepts and antecedents set by their old colonial masters, and lo - Kanu himself was at the beginning trying to maintain some semblance of the required decorum & propriety , with a sense of the importance of the occasion and as the self-appointed leader of his indigenous people, an awareness of exactly where he was ( a holy temple of justice), so I will not ask, to my astonishment, did I hear him address the presiding judge as “ My Lord”? Yes, he did, just when you would have thought that like Jesus, given the mood or the mode he was in, he would have countered the imminence of earthly justice with a “ My Kingdom is not of this world”, or more down- to-earth and more properly speaking, cool, calm, collected, the very essence of equanimity that at the very least, he could have brayed, “ I do not expect any Justice from a Federal Nigerian Court. I will only get a fair trial if I’m tried by my peers in Abia, truly speaking, a province of the now defunct Biafra…