While the New Zealand’s Mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant was charged to court within hours, the reverse is the case in Nigeria. In Nigeria, the wheels of justice are chugging away sluggishly. Hundreds of terrorists and other callous killers such as kidnappers have been in detention without trial.
Don’t tell me lack of evidence is the reason the kidnappers cannot be charged to court for almost one year. Many kidnappers have been arrested along Kaduna/Abuja Federal Highway and a huge cashes of sophisticated deadly weapons seized from them.
Yet their trial hasn’t started, despite these exhibits of deadly weapons in their possession. What more evidence do you need to prosecute these heartless killers? Are there any compelling reasons why the trial of terrorists and kidnappers cannot proceed apace?
You must deliver justice fast and furious to mass murderers instead of keeping them in custody longer than necessary and feeding them at public expense. Delay in delivering justice to these murderous monsters is an insult to the memories of their victims and the sensibilities of their grieving families.
In August in 2015, the government of neighbouring Chad Republic executed 10 Boko Haram terrorists for their roles in suicide attacks on the country. Their trial lasted only three days. In Nigeria, instead of paying for their crimes against humanity, 400 hundred so-called “repentant” Boko Haram terrorists were controversially set free by the government, thereby spitting on the graves of their victims, including the military personnel who were brutally killed by the militants.
Shouldn’t Nigeria borrow a leaf from Chad? Delay in delivering justice speedily to mass murderers could only make them bolder and crueller. As long as murderers are not made to feel the pains of death fast enough, they won’t be deterred from committing more crimes. The sanctity of life shouldn’t be compromised by making the murderers feel that they can mock at justice.
Many murderers are terrified by the thoughts of being taken before the firing squad. I have seen many documentaries of convicted murderers shaking nervously and sweating like pigs as they were led to the gallows, the electric chair or the firing squad. Given a choice between life imprisonment and the gas chamber or the bullet, the murderer will readily go for the former. They know the pains of death, let them feel it too like their victims.
If we want to make murderers pay for their crimes speedily, sluggishness in the dispensation of justice cannot help us achieve the purpose of deterrence, which punishment seeks to create.
How can a corruption trial last for 11 years? How can a terrorism trial drag on more than 10 hears? How can the trial of kidnappers fail to make progress for more than one year? How can the Bill on the Special Corruption Courts be dragging before the National Assembly since 2016 without action from the lawmakers? How can we achieve the desired results when we have the dubious distinction of being notoriously sluggish in our affairs?
Source: Facebook