Families of detained teenagers, including 28 minors accused of joining #Endhungerprotest in Kano and Kaduna states, have cried out for justice.
Parents and relations, who spoke to our correspondents, said that their children were innocent of the alleged treason, asking the authorities to facilitate their release.
The families said they are poor and cannot meet the “stringent” bail conditions granted on Friday by a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The 76 protesters arrested during the August 1 to 10 #EndBadGovernance demonstration were brought to a Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday.
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Videos released soon after their arraignment sparked global outrage, with some commentators describing the incarceration of the minors as “the height of insensitivity” by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.
Some government officials, like the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun had made attempts to justify the arrest of the children.
Also, one of the prosecution lawyers who spoke at the court’s premises on Friday, insisted that all those taken to the court were adults.
These positions had further angered millions of Nigerians who called for accountability.
Most of the minors appeared malnourished after spending months in detention.
They were brought for trial from the police’s Intelligence Response Unit (IRT).
The court had remanded them in the Kuje correctional facility pending the fulfilment of their bail terms after they pleaded not guilty to a 10-count charge bordering on treasonable felony.
The court had also imposed N10 million and two sureties of one civil servant and a sibling on each of the 76 defendants.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, had on Friday written the Nigeria Police to transfer the case file of the #EndBadGovernance protesters to the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation on Saturday.
Reports indicate that the AGF has taken over the case on Saturday.
‘We’re distraught’
Speaking to Daily Trust in Kano yesterday, Bilkisu Dauda, mother of Abbas Hamza, who is defendant No. 27 before the court and whose father is late, described her son as an innocent teenager who had been working hard to support his five younger sisters.
She said the family could not meet the bail condition granted to him as they were “struggling to survive”.
“The family has no means of meeting his bail condition and therefore we are appealing for his release to us because he was the one supporting the family, especially his young ones,” his sister, Sadiya Hamza, said.
Saifullahi Muhammad, who is 15 years old, is defendant No. 68 and his grandmother, Rakiya Ali, said he is an orphan and no one in the family has the means to meet his bail condition.
She said he was attending school at Gwagwarwa and working as a labourer at a block-making industry in the area to support his education.
“Saifullahi was innocent; he was not among the protesters, but was arrested by the police. We plead for his release, he is an orphan,” she said.
Muhammad Sani, who is the father of Umar Muhammad Sani, defendant No.38, said until Friday when his son appeared in court, the family was not aware of his condition and was shocked to hear that he was fed only once a day, looking malnourished and unkempt.
He also said the family could not meet the bail conditions.
Other parents in Kano like Abubakar Yahya and Muhammad Yahya expressed the same ordeal, asking for clemency for their children.
‘I thought my son was dead’
In Kaduna, the mother of Umar Yakubu, Mariya Yakubu, said the family had searched for their son for more than three months and could not find him at police formations in the state until when they saw him in the dock.
She said her son, who was sick on the day of the protest, was detained by security personnel near Ranchers Bees Township Stadium.
“He is my seventh child. I have ten children, but three of them have died. Umar is one of the few who survived, and now he is missing. I have made several efforts to see him. They first held him at the State Police headquarters before transferring him to Abuja. Since then, we haven’t heard a word from him,” Mariya said.
On the N10 million bail bond imposed on her son, she said: “We don’t have money to hire a lawyer or even to visit him in Abuja. We are pleading to the federal government to release these innocent children.”
Another parent, Shuaibu Jibril, known as Baban Jibril, talked about the arrest of his 19-year-old son, Jibril Shuaibu.
He said: “I was at home and didn’t allow my children to go out on the day of the protest. When security personnel arrived at my house at 2:30 am, I was shocked. My son was innocent; he never participated in the protest.
“He was only taken to court once, and since then, he has been remanded in a correctional centre. I don’t understand why they’re treating him like this. I don’t know what to do next. He’s innocent, and it’s heart-breaking to see him in this situation”, he said.
Sani Shehu Sanusi, a lawyer representing the 25 arrested protesters from Kaduna, said they were innocent.
“None of the 25 protesters I represent is a minor; they are above 18 years of age, but were arrested in different locations and didn’t even know each other,” he said.
He also alleged that “the police often arrest people randomly to show they are taking action. It is troubling to see how they handle these cases. There was one man who was simply out to buy medicine and another who went to pray. They were swept up in this crackdown.”
Trial sign of official high-handedness – ACF
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) yesterday called on the Federal Government to halt the treason trial of #EndBadGovernance protesters.
The ACF’s National Publicity Secretary, Professor Tukur Muhammad-Baba, in a statement, described the trial of minors as a show of shame.
“Equally unsettling was the dramatic departure from the court of the presiding judge on sighting some of the under-aged detainees collapsing from hunger and suffering,” he said.
Muhammad-Baba said the ACF viewed these citizens as victims of the Nigerian criminal justice administration system and mindless bureaucracy.
He said the ACF demanded that the federal government investigate the circumstances that led to the detention of the suspects for over three months way beyond the constitutional limits of 24 hours, extend financial compensation to the detainees for their unnecessary and unjustified detention for over three months.
He said the government should also arrange medical examination, treatment and provide professional psychological evaluation and counselling to the detainees and re-evaluate its strategies for processing protests strictly in line with constitutional due processes, principles of good governance and international best practices.
“The very unhelping and insensitive words, to the press, of the prosecuting attorney and those of the Inspector-General of the Police were just as distressing, amounting to an attempt to rationalise (“justify” is a very wrong term to apply) the mis-action, adding to the absurdity of the sham trial. A telling symptom of a justice system gone wild is that the suspects were offered bail for the sum of N10 million each plus some other stringent conditions. From their looks, most of the detainees cannot raise as little as N10, 000 to post bail.
“Subsequent, statements by senior government officials to the effect that the welfare of the detainees will henceforth be taken care of does not inspire confidence. Similarly, the hint that the detainees may be tried in juvenile courts also begs the question: these hapless citizens should not be detained or tried at all, especially as the instigators of the protests have been freely roaming the streets,” he said.
While expressing ACF’s disappointment in the apparent resort to abandoning court by the trial judge as well as the unreasonable bail conditions he granted the detainees, he said: “It was not just the impossible monetary condition but to ask the detainees to provide sureties who must be senior government officials is beyond belief, these being citizens from the lower rungs of society who may never have been to Abuja!
“The ACF join other Nigerians, national and international human rights groups to strongly condemn the ‘charade of a trial and naked, strong-arm tactic, reminiscent of strategies employed by authoritarian and intolerant but weak regimes aimed at muscling citizens”, he said.
Falana challenges bail terms
Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has indicated his intention to challenge the continued prosecution of the minors among the #EndBadGovernance protesters arraigned in court.
This is even as a lawyer, Hamza Dantani, had prepared an application for bail variation and expressed confidence that the court would vary the conditions when he files it today (Monday), given the physical conditions of the minors.
Kano State Governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf had directed the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Haruna Isa Dederi, to get the detainees back to the state.
Falana, whose chambers has been in the matter, as defence lawyers, has filed a notice of preliminary objection asking the judge to decline jurisdiction in the case and for an order mandating the complainant to pay their school fees till at least senior secondary school or university level.
Falana said the application is in line with “Section 18 (3) (a) (b) (c) of the 1999 Constitution, Section 15 of the Child’s Rights Act, Section 2 of the Universal Basic Education Act, and Article 17 of the African Charter.”
Falana argued that the Federal High Court “lacks the jurisdiction to try them by Section 251 of the 1999 Constitution,” stressing that, under “Section 204 of the Child’s Rights Act, they can only be subjected to the child justice system.”
CSOs demand immediate, unconditional release of detainees
Several civil society organisations yesterday asked the federal government to immediately and unconditionally release the detainees.
Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Head of Transparency International-Nigeria And chairman Amnesty International Nigeria, said it is disturbing and damaging to Nigeria’s global image to witness such treatment of young citizens who were only exercising their constitutional rights.
Also, Hauwa Mustapha, Convener, Movement for the Transformation of Nigeria and the Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria (AAN), Andrew Mamedu, said government must release the detainees or risk nationwide mobilisation against “state repression”.
Ibrahim Zikirullahi, Executive Director, Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, said all the protesters must be immediately and unconditionally released.
Similarly, the Arewa Broadcast Media Practitioners’ Forum yesterday demanded the immediate release of the detained minors, describing their arrest as a breach of their rights.
The chairman of the forum, Abdullahi Yelwa, in a statement, said it was a violation of right to dignity of the victims to be physically terrorised and malnourished by a government that ought to have protected them.
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