Orji, 46, died at the Kirikiri Maximum prisons last Friday of an undisclosed ailment. He was arrested under the bridge at Toyota Bus-stop on Oshodi/Apapa Expressway, Lagos, in February 1999, with human parts, which he reportedly claimed he sold to notable Nigerians. He had been awaiting trial since his first appearance in February 1999 at the Ebute-Meta Magistrate Court.
The Attorney-General of Lagos State, Mr. Ade Ipaye, claimed that Orji’s case was stalled due to his medical state of mind and the Director of Office of the Public Defender, Mrs. Omotola Rotimi, explained that the suspect went mad and psychiatric hospitals refused to take him.
We believe that these reasons are simplistic and a feeble attempt to cover up crass inefficiency in our judicial system. As a concerned Nigeria rightly asked in an opinion, at what point did Orji go mad? Couldn’t state-funded hospitals be compelled through a court injunction to take him since it was a criminal case? Or was it an obnoxious attempt to curtail confessions he might make since he had alleged that powerful Nigerians were behind him?
The foregoing questions and many others leave millions of Nigerians perturbed. Orji’s lengthy detention without trial and his sudden death might gladden his accomplices still roaming the streets of Lagos but to many Nigerians, it is a disturbing outcome as the truth may never be known. The identities of those who were behind the suspect and the names of those who were decapitated and the entire money-making ritual ring seem to have died with Orji’s death.
The aim of any trial is not just to punish the culprits but also to establish the truth and prevent similar crimes in the future. It is to apprehend all those who were involved in the crime and establish where the crime was committed, why it was committed and how it was carried out. Now, with Orji’s death, the same ritual killers remain free and their dead victims will never get justice.
Orji’s case is important but not unique as there are many inmates in Nigerian prisons who have been awaiting trial, some for more than a decade. Some of the inmates are facing charges not punishable for more than six months but have been languishing in prisons for many years.
A report recently revealed that many women are in prisons with their babies and such children are getting used to an environment not appropriate for their physical and psychological growth. According to Nigerian laws, a criminal wrong is any offence punishable by the state. The reason so many people languish in jail without trial can be attributed to a number of factors. The police often arrest suspects, arraign them in court and abandon them in jail while the office of the Public Defender often fails to do follow-up and many people are simply forgotten there.
Impoverished families often do not have money to hire lawyers and judges often adjourn cases indefinitely. As more suspects are brought in, some of them on flimsy excuses, our prisons become congested and the entire concept of a prison as a place for reformation and correction is defeated.
When convicts are released, they often return to prison having become worse than when they were first brought to prisons. We believe that our judicial system needs to be completely overhaul. It should be in the interest of the police and other law enforcement agencies to ensure that justice is served. Their absence in court on flimsy excuses often delay trials for many months or years.
The office of the Public Defender must embark on a massive awareness campaign to encourage families whose relatives have been awaiting trial indefinitely to come forward so that justice can be served. Non Governmental Organisations must continue to work hard and bring these loopholes to the public knowledge. Overhauling our criminal justice system requires more than just lawyers and judges, it requires a drastic change by our law enforcement agents and Nigerians who must stop bribing the police to abandon suspects in jail.
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