Nearly 12 years after the June 7 and 8, 2005 cold-blooded murder of five young male traders and a female student (the ‘Apo six’) by the police in Abuja , two of the police officers involved have today Thursday March 9, 2017 been sentenced to death for culpable homicide. Justice Ishaq Bello of the Federal Capital Territory High Court found two of the accused persons, Ezekiel Acheneje and Baba Emmanuel, guilty for their roles in the killing of six Igbo traders in 2005.However, three other police officers, including a then deputy commissioner of police - Danjuma Ibrahim, Nicholas Zakaria, and Sadiq Salami- were set free, discharged and acquitted by the court for want of evidence.
A sixth accused police officer, Othman Abdulsalam, has been at large since the case started and had no legal representation.
Delivering judgment in a nine-count criminal charge brought by the federal government against the police officers, Mr. Bello said the court had no option than to convict the two men on account of their own confessional statements that they shot the two traders based on instruction from superior officers.
The prime suspect in that senseless multiple first degree murder, Deputy Superintendent of Police Ibrahim Danjuma, angered by the effrontery of Augusta Arebu (the only girl among the six) in refusing his love propositions, waylaid the six at a police checkpoint on their way back from a night party. He unconscionably tagged them armed robbers and ordered policemen at the check point to shoot them.
This happened shortly before the visit to Nigeria of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions in that year.
Nearly twelve years after this most infamous case of extrajudicial killing in Nigeria, the criminal trial of the identified killer-police officers has eventually gone somewhere.
Families of the victims almost gave up hope for justice- especially after the prime suspect was granted bail in 2006 by the trial judge, Justice Isyaku Bello on dubious health grounds.
Mr. Othman Abdulsalam, the then Divisional Police Officer of Garki police Station- where they were killed- also ‘escaped’ from police custody and has remained at large till date.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, in his report, said of this incident:
‘If the Apo 6 were an isolated incident it would be a tragedy and a case of a few bad apples within the police force. Unfortunately, many of the ingredients – the false labeling of people as armed robbers, the shooting, the fraudulent placement of weapons, the attempted extortion of the victims’ families, the contempt for post mortem procedures, the falsified death certificates, and the flight of an accused senior police officer – are all too familiar occurrences.’
While NOPRIN welcomes the conviction of the two former police officers for their involvement in the shooting and killing one of the boys and the only girl among the six, we are concerned that the prime suspect who ordered the killing may have escaped justice. Equal justice demands that all the culprits be brought to justice.
NOPRIN also believes that, grievous as their crime is, imposing death sentence on the convicts is not in tune with the growing global campaign for the abolition of death penalty since it has not been demonstrated to deter crime. At best, it amounts to vengeance. Maximum prison term will be more effective and remedial than death sentence.
The long period it took for judgment to come on this tragic case underscores the urgency for intensified campaign for reforms to ensure a speedy, fair and more responsive criminal justice system.
Okechukwu Nwanguma
National Coordinator
08064974531
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