Seeds of injustice at Ungwan Romi

Last month, according to the news: “A Gusau High Court presided over by Justice Bello Turkur Gummi has sentenced one Mr Abdullahi Abubakar, to death by hanging, for killing his stepdaughter”. That is an example of what should happen to a calculated murderer upon conviction.Now please examine this incident at Ungwan Romi area on the […]

Last month, according to the news: “A Gusau High Court presided over by Justice Bello Turkur Gummi has sentenced one Mr Abdullahi Abubakar, to death by hanging, for killing his stepdaughter”. That is an example of what should happen to a calculated murderer upon conviction.
Now please examine this incident at Ungwan Romi area on the outskirts of Kaduna, where one Mr Lucky, popularly known as Gozon, was stabbed to death at his sister’s birthday party by his close friend who is also Gozon’s sister’s boyfriend. It was boisterous gig, until a fight broke out between Gozon’s sister and her boyfriend. Gozon couldn’t stand the sight of his sister being beaten so mercilessly, so he intervened to end the quarrel. Out of the blues, Gozon’s friend brought out a sharp knife and stabbed Gozon.  Gozon was rushed to the hospital, but he died on the way.
The partygoers were understandably shocked at the turn of events. The killer, seeing how things have turned out, tried to escape but the police arrested him.
So far so good. You would expect that with the matter in the hands of the police, and with so many witnesses at the murder scene, this was an open-and-shut case. Think again.
The murder’s uncle happens to be some top chief in hierarchy in the chiefdom of the area, a traditional ruler.  Which is also okay; one can use one’s position to make sure that whatever justice an accused criminal gets, this would be mitigated with the provision of mitigating circumstances for the judges to consider.
But this is not the case either. Villagers are feeling terrible that this man, the traditional ruler, has used his influence as the head of his tribe to persuade the police to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’. Well, there is a problem here, because this in injustice in it rawest form. The most painful aspect of it is that this calculated murderer was not even taken to court for the rule of law to applied to set him free.
It is very sad to know that this same man is back at Ungwan Romi, acting like a superman.
The shock is palpable; but this will be followed by calm before a possible storm.
This is because the late Gozon, being the only surviving son of his mother, popularly known as Mama Alheri could not withstand the tragedy; the shocked sent her to her untimely grave.
In order to prevent that storm from breaking over us all, it would be useful for the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police to quickly intervene in this case by making sure that his men do what is right by the law in this case, and that is arraigning the alleged murderer, who is well-known in the community, before a court to answer for his crime.

Awunah Pius Terwase, Kaduna Polytechnic, <[email protected]>;