It was a tense atmosphere yesterday as the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja convicted and consequently sentenced the alleged mastermind of the 2010 Independence Day bombing, Charles Okah, to life imprisonment.
The court also convicted one Obi Nwabueze who was alleged to be his accomplice to life sentence
The trial of Okah, which started in 2010, had lasted for eight years. Delivering the judgement, which lasted for over five hours, Justice Gabriel Kolawole held that oral and documentary evidences, which the Federal Government tendered before the court, connected the defendants to the October 1, 2010 bomb blast. He further held that the prosecution proved the terrorism charge against the defendants beyond every reasonable doubt.
Justice Kolawole also held that there was ample evidence before him that a former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Henry Okah, released funds for the convicts to purchase cars that were used to detonate bombs in Delta State on March 15 and in Abuja on October 1, 2010.
The court also noted that two out of six cars that Henry ordered to be purchased, a Mazda 626 and a Honda Hala, were wired with dynamites and deployed to the Eagle Square in Abuja. The court, in the final analysis, found Okah guilty on five out of the eight counts terrorism charge slammed on him by the Federal Government. The court, however, stressed that the defendants failed to convince the court through credible evidence, that they were not involved in the acts of terrorism they were charged with.
He noted that the defendants find it difficult to explain what the sums of N1.2 million and N2 million that Henry released to them in 2010, were used for.
The Federal Government had initially arraigned four people over their involvement on the said bomb attack. During the trial, one of the defendants, Osvwo Tekemfa Francis, a.k.a ‘General-Gbokos’, died in prison. Another defendant, Edmund Ebiware, sought for a separate trial and he was consequently sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013. The defendants were initially arraigned before the High Court on December 7, 2010 and subsequently re-arraigned on January 12, 2011
The Federal Government had, in an 8-count terrorism charge marked FHC/ CR/186/2010, insisted that it was Charles that mobilised the other defendants. In the charge, Okah brothers were alleged to have coordinated as well as procured all the materials that were used for the attack.
The second defendant, Nwabueze, was alleged to have helped them to fix Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in two cars that were allegedly used for the bombing. In his judgement, Justice Kolawole held that evidence before the court showed that the 2nd defendant, Nwabueze, made himself available as a footsoldier to be used for evil errands that earned him monetary rewards.
The court observed that Nwabueze had, in his confessional statement that was entered into evidence as Exhibit 2D1 to D9, admitted that he was contracted to construct special compartments in the cars where the IEDs were fixed. Earlier before the sentence was passed, the defence counsel, Emeka Okafor and Oghenovo Otemu, had made an allocutus (pleaded the court to temper justice with mercy).
They urged the court to consider that their clients had no previous criminal records, adding that they have been in prison custody for over eight years. The court was told that Okah has an aged mother and kids that depended on him for survival.
Their allocutus was premised on sections 311 and 401 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. They, however, prayed the court to mitigate Okah’s sentence, submitting that he will not engage in any form of criminality again.
After listening to the parties, Justice Kolawole held that: “I have to place the section under which the defendants were charged, above every other consideration. “The court would be seen as acting capriciously, if it imposed lighter sentence on Okah and Nwabueze after their coaccused, Ebiware, got life imprisonment over the same allegation. “The defendants are hereby convicted of the charge filed against them and hereby sentenced to life imprisonment.