Given the urgency of this matter and the widespread confusion around it, I hereby undertake to provide a summary analysis of the due process rights of Mr. Cyriacus Njoku.
I start with a reference to a newspaper report on the case, thus: “Barely two weeks after he challenged the eligibility of President Goodluck Jonathan to stand election in 2015, the man, Mr. Cyriacus Njoku, has been arrested and sent to jail for alleged rape. Similarly, his defence counsel, Mr. Ugochukwu Osuagwu, has fled the country with members of his family, alleging that he had been under constant threats of elimination by unknown persons...” Vanguard, April 11, 2013.
The principal requirement of due process is that a person’s legal status cannot change adversely without the due process of the law. It is fundamental, constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before the government acts to take away one's life, liberty, or property. Also, due process is a constitutional guarantee that a law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Due+Process+of+Law). In addition to substantive rights, the Constitution also sets out the standard procedures that must be followed before a person’s legal status could be altered negatively. For instance, a free man cannot lose his liberty except if all the requirements of law have been complied with.
The constitutional guarantee of due process of law is found in Chapter IV of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. Chapter IV of the Constitution, prohibits all levels of government from arbitrarily or unfairly depriving individuals of their basic constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. Due process has had a fairly strong historical origin in the English Magna Cater through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The due process clause in Chapter IV of Nigeria’s Constitution shared a common jurisprudential origin as the British and American examples. Both the principle and objective of the law are the same in these countries, which is to establish the rule that individuals shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without notice and an opportunity to defend themselves
It is significant that the Constitution provides the anchor for a person’s due process rights. The emphasis is on the word, rights, because the Constitution deliberately provided for the due process expectations within the fundamental rights grant. This means that it is really not up to the Government to grant or respect these rights. Rather, the Government is duty-bound to uphold these standards. Also, various laws in the country have provisions aimed at protecting the due process rights of individuals. In addition to specific laws dealing on due process, there are certain conditions that are put in place for the purpose of enhancing due process. In this respect, experts speak of these rights as substantive and procedural due process.
Examples of substantive due process rights are the freedom of speech, freedom of movement, right to liberty, etc. Examples of procedural due process rights are the rights to fair hearing, right to the presumption of innocence, right to counsel of your choice, right to trial by a court of law, right against self incrimination, right to speedy trial, right to a reasonable opportunity to prepare for your defence, right to be present during trial, right to confront adverse witnesses and to controvert their testimony, etc.. The combined effect of these rights is that a person cannot simply move from being a free man one day to becoming a rapist the next day without going through the whole hog of the constitutionally mandated legal procedure that ends in a conviction based on proof beyond reasonable doubts.
Indeed, borrowing from Achebe’s metaphor, the procedural due process rights are the oil with which the other rights and liberties are to be enjoyed. Without these procedural rights, the rest of rights and freedoms would have no meaning. Your freedom of movement has no meaning if the government can lock you up whenever it likes. Your freedom of speech would have no practical relevance if the government could come up with some fancy charges and throw you into jail as it pleases. The requirement that they try you in a court of law and that you be presumed innocent until proven guilty was put in place just to prevent the state from doing to you what Nigeria is now doing to Mr. Njoku.
Part of the due process requirement is that a person who has committed an offence must be tried immediately. It is not clear when this rape was allegedly committed. Whether the alleged victim was a set up by party politicians who wanted Mr. Njoku out of the way is a plausible explanation.
Also, due process rights require that the person accused of crime should be given the opportunity to defend himself. Having this man locked up in Suleja prisons and denied access to lawyers and his family is a fundamental violation of his due process rights.
Further, due process requires that the person accused of committing a crime should have the right to hire a lawyer of his choice. However, where the State or the regime elements have successfully intimidated the lawyer hired by the accused and put fear in him, causing him to flee the country, there cannot be said to be due process. In fact, the exiling of the accused lawyer casts a chill on all other lawyers in the country to be approached by Mr. Njoku. It was like a gangland maneuver where a message of fear is sent across to those likely to ask questions with an obvious intent to scare.
Another important aspect of due process is that the person accused of a crime should be granted bail to enable him defend himself in court of law. But this man has been denied bail, making it impossible for him to meet with his lawyers and to review his documents and diaries and to contact those that would testify on his behalf. Indeed, the conditions under which he is detained currently violate his right to counsel of his choice and to prepare his defence.
Another aspects to consider in this matter is the fact that Mr. Njoku has a case pending at the Court of Appeal. By having him locked up in the manner they have done, it is clear what the effect would be on the appeal. That appeal could really be the target of the man’s arrest and current prosecution. From the notable case of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and through the case of Shugaba, Nigerian Government has a history of using false detentions and malicious prosecutions as instruments for controlling outcomes elsewhere. It will be consistent with such ignoble practice to arrest and prosecute Mr. Njoku in order to derail his appeal.
The government has often aimed at the gullibility of the average Nigerian. Many Nigerians do not realize that it does not take anything to accuse a person of a crime. By the practice of the Nigerian law enforcement authorities, it takes nothing at all to call a person a rapist or a treasonable felon or even an alien. As a result, many Nigerians upon hearing such an allegation sillily believe that a criminal has been identified and they begin to make the presumptions of guilt contrary to law. After many years of deliberately depriving Nigerians of quality education and normal development, the Government now hopes to harvest a gullible, malleable and manipulable population which will believe everything it is told.
Whenever there has been such an egregious violation of a person’s due process rights as in this case, it is safe to assume that the charges against Njoku are trumped up charges. It is safe to assume in this case that this man will be found not guilty and that he has been persecuted for political purposes and that he is a political prisoner. This conclusion is what the state has forced upon us by its reckless and continuing violation of the procedural and substantive due process rights of this man.
This case also confirms that Nigerian government officials do not care a damn about Nigeria. They do not care about the interest of the country or the interest of the people. They care only about power and office holding which in turn brings to them vast opportunities for corrupt enrichment. The criminal may not be the man in detention, but rather the government officials who orchestrated this the events of this charge. This is what the German Government must have easily deduced to justify such an automatic grant of asylum to the lawyer of Mr. Njoku.
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