Court orders payment for the death in EFCC custody
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Abuja has been ordered by Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Community Court of Justice (CCJ) to pay N20 million as damages for the death of Desmond Nunugwo in 2016 while in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The court ordered the federal government to pay the compensation to his family, in a judgment handed down by presiding Justice Edward Asante who was assisted by Justices Dupe Atoki and Januaria Costa.
ECOWAS Supplemental Protocol, which came into effect in 2005, gives the CCJ jurisdiction to hear human rights cases between individuals and their own member states.
Nunugwo was taken into custody by EFCC operatives in Abuja on 16 April 2016 on allegations of defrauding a complainant of N91 million. He took ill 24 hours later and was taken to a hospital where he died.
His family accused the graft buster, then headed by Ibrahim Magu, of killing Nunugwo, who was healthy before his arrest.
The EFCC failed to respond to the allegation, prompting Nunugwo’s siblings, Rose Breivigel and Elizabeth Baumerich, to file an action against it in March 2019.
The applicants claimed their brother, who was survived by a wife and four children, was tortured to death, based on frequent reports of extra-judicial killings in Nigeria.
The case was filed by their lawyers, Oludayo Fagbemi and Holger Hermbach, while Maimuna Shiru represented the federal government.
The ECOWAS court noted that before the applicants filed the suit with it, they had reported the death to the Nigerian authorities, which failed to investigate the incident.
They also lodged a complaint with the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in February 2017, the court added.
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Autopsy done without family’s knowledge
Asante noted that an autopsy was carried out on Nunugwo in April 2018 without the knowledge of his family, and the result cited hypertension as the cause of death, but provided no additional explanation.
He declared that Nunugwo’s right to life under Article 4 of the African Charter was violated and the Nigerian government also breached its duty to investigate this under the same charter, per reporting by The PUNCH.
The judge said: “The court sitting in public after hearing both parties dismissed the allegation of violation of Mr Nunugwo’s right to freedom from torture under Article 5 of the African Charter; dismisses the allegation of the applicant’s right to presumption of innocence under Article 7 of the Charter was violated by the respondent and orders the respondent to pay the lump sum of N20m to the family of Mr Nunugwo as compensation for all the prejudice and damages suffered as a result of his death in violation of Article 4 of the African Charter.”
Importance of due process
Olaseni Shalom, Executive Director of United Global Resolve for Peace, a human rights advocacy, insisted that the authorities must follow due process in all their actions as the Constitution does not permit the torture of suspects.
“The judgment is a victory for justice. I am not encouraging fraud; but whatever we are doing as a country, we must follow due process. We have seen cases where due process was ignored while seeking justice, but that is not justice at all.
“It is a wake-up call for our law enforcement agencies to always respect human rights,” he said.