₦airaland Forum

By David Adetula

In an exclusive interview with OAU Peeps News Agency, the Lord Chancellor of the Judicial Council of the Obafemi Awolowo University Students' Union, Justice Joshua Olorunda has described the process suspects are being tried in OAU as crude, barbaric, unreasonable and animalistic and calls for vituperation.

Joshua Olorunda, a Part 5 student of the Faculty of Law in his opening response insisted that his opinion on the matter is personal and does not necessarily connote the exact position of either the Judicial arm of the Union which he leads or that of the Students' Union. Responding to a question on the way he sees the process trials are undertaken in OAU by the Security Committee of the Students' Union, he stylishly blamed the inadequacy of the SU Constitution on stipulated punitive measures for criminal offenses for the lapses.

The Lord Chancellor said “When I became the Lord Chancellor of the Students’ Union, the former Lord Chancellor told me that everything he fought during his tenure was to scrape the process evidence is been gotten from students who have been accused and non-students alike but he failed.

“When I came into office, I had started this, It is unfortunate that I wrote a correspondence to the Parliament on my views on how suspects are been tried my but it was not read. I don’t know why. The process suspects are been tried is barbaric, it is unreasonable, it is animalistic; It calls for vituperation. The most annoying thing is that people look up to me as if I have direct jurisdiction on it.

"The issue of the Judicial Council not having power to try theft cases is even still debateable. No part of the Constitution has directly given the responsibility to any organ of the Union".

Justice Joshua however related the functions of the Security Committee to that of the Police in the mainstream world who are still responsible to the judiciary. He noted that the non-provision of the ways suspects are been tried and punitive measures for 'convicts' necessitated the function been handled by a Security Committee that is not also provided for in the constitution of the OAU Students' Union. The Lord Chancellor though noted that not all cases are taken to the court in the mainstream world especially when they are trivial but said the Police have the right to take cases to court.

The Lord Chancellor also lamented the tradition of extracting information under duress from suspects in OAU. He acknowledged some instances where some suspects are beaten and given animalistic treatment in a bid to force them to confess but eventually turn out that those persons are innocent. Also on the 'Scientific Maximum Shishi' (SMS), Joshua wants students of OAU to accept the global best practices on trials of suspects. He wants SMS to be reduced to the bearest minimum and other punitive measure like community services added to it.

Students of Obafemi Awolowo University in recent days have continued to campaign to strongly agitate for the review of the way suspects are been tried and the punitive measures for various criminal offenses. In lieu of this, some students have recommended a referendum at faculty levels to aggregate the possible way forward as it will be opinionated by the students.

Illuminatus:
Thanks, Dave. What I don't get is why nothing is being done yet? When we get a repeat of ALUU4? I guess it's too much to expect that undergraduates to understand the graveness of jungle justice. Sigh.

Moreover, what's this SMS? Sounds like Trial by Ordeal...