By Abdulrazaq Hassan
Nadiye Garba is a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom. As a state counsel, he prosecuted high-caliber criminal cases with precision and determination. His legal expertise and keen analytical mind made him stand out among his peers.
Garba, a prosecuting counsel in the Ministry of Justice, Gombe State has a deep-rooted belief in the importance of upholding justice and ensuring that criminals face the consequences of their actions. This often put him at odds with the administration of criminal justice in Nigeria, which is plagued by corruption and inefficiency.
“The administration of criminal justice itself is faulty with Nigerian prisons and police cells are daily becoming congested with an influx of accused persons or suspects awaiting trial or those whose matters are still being investigated by the men of Nigeria police. Once there’s no synergy between the actors, it becomes difficult to do the work effectively. I think this is a general problem that needs to be looked at holistically to checkmate the menace often encountered in the Administration of the criminal justice system”, he explains.
The Nigerian criminal justice administration has been plagued with manifest challenges ranging from poor handling and inhuman treatment of suspects, proxy arrests, onerous and practically impossible bail conditions, delayed prosecution of cases blamed on the court, the prosecution, and the counsel, to poor living condition of prisoners in our various prisons to corrupt practices of the law enforcement officers, magistrate/judges and lawyers.
Thousands of Nigerians are languishing in prison without any attempt at hearing their cases which is a clear violation of their fundamental rights. There’s a huge gap between the number of convicted persons and those awaiting trial revealing that the machinery of justice dispensation is abysmally slow.
A 2021 report by Dataphyte put the figure at 7 out of 10 inmates awaiting trials while stating that the prisons are overcrowded by 37 per cent. The report also documented that out of 70,056 prisoners only 19,234 inmates have been convicted while remaining 50, 822 are awaiting trial.
Worried by the anomalies in the dispensation of the criminal justice administration, Garba refused to overlook the injustices that pervaded the system.
Garba had always known that standing up for justice would come with challenges, but nothing could have prepared him for the moment when he faced the ultimate test of his principles.
He recalled a kidnapping case he once handled where the defendant’s relatives were pressurizing him, with offers of bribes on one hand and threatening him on the other hand. coming his way. As a state counsel, Garba is responsible for presenting cases against individuals suspected of violating the law as well as initiating and directing further criminal investigations.
Garba stood at the crossroads of morality and greed faced with the decision that could alter the course of his life. As a dedicated government official, he had always prided himself as someone with integrity and unwavering commitment to justice.
He was offered the sum of five million naira but Garba was not one to be swayed by such temptations. When the defendant’s relatives approached him with a bribe in exchange for dropping the case, Garba knew he had to make a difficult decision. He could have taken the bribe and walked away, but his conscience would never allow him to betray his principles.
He says, “I remember a kidnapping case I handled where the relatives of the defendant confronted me asking me to name my price, just so the kidnapper could walk Free. I went to the office to report back to my bosses that I could no longer continue the case due to pressure and to assign the case to a different person, but they insisted that I continue with the case. His lawyers asked for his bail and I opposed it vehemently and I refused the offer”.
Despite the threats and intimidation he faced, Garba refused to back down. He remembered a particular incident where he received a call from a higher authority directing him to go contrary to the law.
He made it clear that he was content with his role as a prosecuting counsel and had no interest in any form of bribery or corruption.
He says, “Once you are there, any high court judge becomes your boss. Once a case is brought before you, you could get a call from high level government officials to go contrary to the direction you meant to go according to the law. I think I am okay where I am. As a prosecuting counsel, once a directive is given to you to do the wrong thing and you refuse, they will tag you as a stubborn person and beam a spotlight on you”.
He recalls a case where the accused person who committed a capital offense appeared in court twice and wasn’t seen afterward. The court had sent a production warrant to the prison to produce him to attend his trial. A hearing notice was sent up to six times only to find out the accused person was no longer in the custody of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS).
He said “As the prosecuting counsel of the case, the judge ordered me to write directly to the prison to find out the whereabouts of the accused person. I did. I even went there twice and their excuse was that they don’t accept underage offenders which could imply that the accused was under age but that was not true, they had written down that he was 17 years old on their file but the man who appeared in court was an adult. The judge got angry and then ordered that the case file be returned to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) for reassignment. If the person was released on bail, for example, we should have been furnished with his bail bond but there was no such document in the file”.
Barrister Lah Jacob Jonah has worked with Garba for several years and refers to him as someone who can be relied on.“He is my colleague in the office. He is disposed to work and is someone you can rely on. He defends the public interest”, Jonah says.
Jonah nominated Garba for the Accountability Lab Nigeria’s Integrity Icon Awards because he’s someone that can be depended on. He raves about him as someone who is humble, simple, and bold.
Garba expresses his readiness to continue his crusade for integrity and transparency in the public sector.
This report is championed by Accountability Lab Nigeria and sponsored by The John D and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation and Laminate.
.jpeg)
0 Comments