Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders in the dock

By Richard Akinnola

As soon as the Ogoni civil disturbances tribunal, headed by Justice Ibrahim Auta, pronounced its death verdict on Ken Saro- Wiwa and eight others, a human rights body, Constitutional Rights Project (CRP) filed a suit at the Federal High Court, asking the court to stop the planned execution.

The CRP asked the court to stop the execution pending the complaint it filed against the government at the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights in The Gambia.

The CRP had filed a similar suit when the General Babangida junta used a similar tribunal to pass death sentences on Major-General Zamani Lekwot and five Zangon Kataf indigenes over the Zango Kataf crisis. Justice Morounkeji Onalaja (as he then was) restrained the government from executing them.

The CRP initiated a similar suit to save the lives of Ken and others after the death sentences.

It was CRP’s contention that the whole trial violated Articles 55, 56, 57, 58 and 59 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Chapter 10 Laws of the Federation 1990.

The suit was supported by a 19-paragraph affidavit sworn to by Mr. Kolawole Olaniyan,a legal practitioner with the CRP.

Olaniyan deposed that since the Federal Government ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and went further to enact it as a domestic legislation in Chapter 10 Law of the Federation, Vol. 1 of 1990, it was bound to give effect to the law. Attached to the motion was an affidavit of urgency, stating that the court should urgently intervene, otherwise, the nine convicts could be executed.

The CRP also sought an order that, by virtue of the provisions of Articles 55 to 59 of the African Charter, the government could not legally and validly carry out the execution, pending the determination of the complaint filed with the African Human Rights Commission.

Despite the affidavit of urgency in the application, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Babatunde Belgore, refused to assign the case. Consequently, Mr. Olaniyan, the CRP lawyer, met the Chief Judge in the Chambers and prevailed on him to quickly assign the case in view of its urgency.

According to Mr. Olaniyan, in a subsequent press statement, Justice Belgore told him in the chambers that since the sentences had not been ratified by the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC), there was nothing urgent in the case.

When reminded that they could be executed within 24 hours of the confirmation, Justice Belgore still refused to assign the case.

Subsequently, when the PRC confirmed the death sentence on Wednesday, November 8, Mr. Olaniyan again rushed to meet the Chief Judge in his chambers, imploring him to assign the case since the death sentences had been confirmed. He relied on the affidavit of urgency filed along with the application and literally begged the Chief Judge to hear the case since the convicts could be hanged at any moment. Justice Belgore refused to hear or assign the case. Rather, he curiously asked the CRP lawyer to put the Federal Government on notice, a delay tactic that was meant to stultify the matter.

Pleadings that almost led to lachrymal effusions by the CRP lawyer did not move the Chief Judge, who, according to Mr. Olaniyan, treated the issue with much levity.

A disappointed Olaniyan then walked out of the Judge’s chamber dejectedly, leading to the issuance of his press statement, condemning the role of the Chief Judge in the execution saga. They were hanged at the Port Harcourt prison on November 10, 1995.

The role Justice Belgore played in the Ogoni saga had been a source of worry to keen watchers of the trial. It was the Judge who initially washed his hands of the case, following enquiries by Chief Fawehinmi.

Rather, he told Fawehinmi that the trial was purely a presidency affair. And it was the same Justice Belgore who refused to act to save the lives of the convicts.