Kemisola Oye
HUMAN rights lawyer and senior advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana, has opined Justice Falola of Osun State High Court that tried and convicted a 17-years-old on allegation of armed robbery lacked the jurisdictional competence to have tried him.
According to the senior lawyer, the trial of Olowokere Segun the case ought to have been instituted in the Osun State Family Court which is exclusively empowered to exercise jurisdiction in any criminal proceeding involving or relating to any penalty, forfeiture, punishment or other liability in respect of an offence committed by a child, against a child or against the interest of a child.
Olowokere Segun was about ten (10) years was along with others found guilty of armed robbery and sentenced to death. However, on the grounds of the young age of the convict and the circumstances of the case, the judge had recommended to the governor to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment.
But Falana insists that the trial, conviction, and death sentence passed on Olowokere Segun were illegal, null and void in every material particular as it was not denied that Olowokere was 17 years old at the time of his trial,
“Even if a child is convicted and found guilty of armed robbery, he or she shall not be ordered to be‐(a) imprisoned; or (b) subjected to corporal punishment or subjected to the death penalty or, have the death penalty recorded against him. In other words, the Family Court or any court in Osun State is prohibited from imposing the death penalty on any person under 18 years.
“Even before the enactment of the Child’s Rights Law, it was illegal to pass the death sentence on a 17-year old person under Section 420 of the Osun State Criminal Procedure Law. It was in realisation of the provision of that law that the learned trial judge recommended to the Governor of Osun State to grant clemency to Olowokere Segun based on mitigating factors, such as age and first-offender status.
“But probably due to poverty and ignorance, the family of Olowokere neither appealed against the judgment nor pursued the recommendation of clemency made by the trial judge. Hence, the young convict had been on death row at the Kirikiri Maximum Correctional Centre for the past 10 years.
“Since the trial, conviction and death sentence passed on Olowokere Segun cannot be justified in law, Governor Ademola Adeleke has rightly granted him full pardon in exercise of the prerogative of mercy conferred on him by Section 214 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Eighteen-Eleven Media