[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 22




NIGERIA:

'How I survived 13 years on death row'


For Lekan Ibitoye, 1994 was the most traumatic of his 50 years on earth.
He tells Tayo Lewis, his almost unbelievable escape from the gulag after
13 years of daily expecting death at every moment.

As the sun rose over his cell which served as his home in the past 13
years, it was for him a reminder that that day could be his last on earth.
The arrival of each day was supposed to signal hope; a new beginning, but
for Lekan Ibitoye and his 200 co-travellers in the condemned persons cell
at the Ibara Prisons, Abeokuta, Ogun State, it was always a bad omen.

Executions dont take place at night, neither between Monday and Friday
mornings too. So during the week, they chatted and tried to make the most
of their existence, regalling one another with stories of their escapades,
or misadventures and misfortunes as the case may be. It was in this
condition that Lekan came in contact with Wasiu Adeyemi. Wasiu's case
would serve as a thriller to versatile movie producers like Olu Jacobs or
Wale Adenuga.

Wasiu was a load carrier (Alaaru) in Ogbomoso. Unfortunately, he got
arrested by the police in the commotion that followed the last riot by
students of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso. He was
arrested with 3 other friends and brought to Ibadan. While in detention,
relations visited the 3 friends together and brought them food. Along the
way, a petty row started over food. Wasiu and his friends' charge sheet
had by this time started reading something like armed robbery, and to get
back at his friends, he concluded that the best thing to do was to plead
guilty so as to indict the others.

According to Lekan's account, the judge who tried their case insisted on
seeing witnesses to the armed robbery case before convicting them and was
about to discharge the 3 when Wasiu raised his hands in the dock and said
they were guilty. The other 2 said they knew nothing about armed robbery
and were only arrested for rioting. The judge promptly discharged the
other 2 and sentenced Wasiu Adeyemi to death by hanging. Someone had been
killed at the scene of the armed robbery for which they were charged.

Wasiu confessed this to all those in the condemned cell at the maximum
prisons, Lagos, where Lekan Ibitoye was later transferred due to
congestion to the Ibara prisons. Wasiu has since gone to meet his maker,
having faced the executioner for a crime he really did not commit.But how
would one verify the authenticity of these 'innocent accounts.'?

Ibitoye told Nigerian Tribune that in the condemned personscell, there is
no longer any need to hide. Aside this, when it is time for execution, the
reality of death dawns on the convict and he confesses his sins as he is
handcuffed, leg chained and blind-folded on his way to keep a date with
destiny.

"Between Mondays and Fridays, we are our normal selves, but as evening
comes on Friday we will all become drawn and apprehensive. In the night,
each inmate is allocated the usual 2 fingers space to sleep because the
cell which should not have more than 50 inmates is taken up by about 200
of us. When we complain, they tell us there is nothing they can do about
it; it is the government that keeps bringing convicts and warders cannot
take them to their own houses to sleep.

"When we wake up on Saturday morning and the warders are more than their
usual number, and stay longer on the parade ground, we then know that
there is gong to be execution that day. We won't know who they are coming
for, everyone in the condemned cell will just be apprehensive.

"Soon, they will leave the parade ground and bombard our cell. They would
have mobilised warders from other states, MOPOL and several policemen.
They will come into our cell and overpower the man to be executed. The
judge who sentenced that convict to death will also be around and a pastor
or Imam. The judge will then tell the convict that "I have only condemned
you based on your witness, I am innocent of your blood." The pastor or
imam will pray with the person and he will then be executed. As he moves
towards the place, leg chained, he would confess his crimes or reaffirms
his innocence as the case may be and plead forgiveness from God."

"The execution hall is right behind our cell so we hear all the goings
on," Ibitoye told the Nigerian Tribune. How then did Lekan Ibitoye make it
to the condemned persons' cell? His is a very long story. Lekan used to
live in his father's house behind Ibadan Grammar School, Molete, Ibadan,
Oyo State. One day, a peer of his, whose mother also has a building on the
street called him to intervene in a feud he had with another young man
whose mother also owns a building on the street. The 2 had been
quarrelling over who had intruded into the other's property. Lekan is a
trained town planner and that was why his technical input was needed.

After taking a look at the two properties and the drawings, Lekan blamed
Sule Agboluaje for tresspassing on the other's property. Unknown to Lekan,
Sule was a police informant. He informed the police that he had
information about 2 armed robbers in his area, he pointed out Lekan and
the other boy, and the 2 were promptly arrested.

"Actually, after the inspection, I voiced my annoyance and one elderly man
in the area who is also a landlord, Chief Ayodele Anjorin intervened and
tried to pacify me but I never imagined it would go beyond that," Lekan
told Nigerian Tribune. "Soon after the incident, my father died on
September 28, 1994 and people were coming in to condole with us. On Oct
10, 1994, I was at home having just returned from Bodija where I was
selling planks when my daughter came in to say I had visitors. I told her
to bring them in, thinking they were visitors on condolence visit. I
welcomed them and after identifying me as Lekan Ibitoye, they said I had
to go with them to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Iyaganku.

"My mother who was with me on the dining table was askance and as I tried
to ask them what offence I had committed, they started beating me up. My
mother started shouting, bringing in my younger brothers, who, not knowing
they were policemen, beat them up too. It was confusion galore. Despite
the intervention of my uncle, a retired Lt. Colonel, they bundled me and
the other boy to Iyaganku that night," Lekan narrated.

That was the beginning of Ibitoyes nightmare. Lekan claimed he was
variously beaten up by the police but was surprised when he was charged
with being one of those who went to a sawmill at old Ife road area of the
city to steal milling machines. He denied ever doing such a thing but
could not convince the police of his innocence.

At the police cell, he met the guards who were at the sawmill where the
robbery took place. They were told to identify him as the one who drove
the machines away. They refused, saying they knew at least one of those
who came, but the face they were looking at was definitely not one of
them. "Eventually, I don't know what became of them as I no longer saw
them in the cell," Lekan said.

After sometime, Lekan claimed the police promised to release him if he
could sign a statement indicting one Alhaji Tiamiyu as the receiver of the
goods after he stole them. He also blatantly refused to sign such a thing,
saying he had never met the old man in his life.

Before this time, Sule Agboluaje had been to the station to see Laken and
plead for forgiveness. He confessed what happened, saying that his actual
target was to punish the other boy who claimed he had intruded on his
mother's property. When Sule however noticed that contrary to his
agreement with the police to release Lekan, he was to be taken to court,
Sule also started running around for help. Lawyer Gbenga Awosodes
intervention as a human rights activist was sought and he promptly stepped
in.

Despite several appeals, interventions and pleadings, based on a forced
confessional statement which Lekan signed when he was promised freedom if
he would agree he committed the offence, but not indicting Alhaji Timaiyu,
he was sentenced to death by hanging on July 8, 1997. Lekan claims that he
was actually a victim of cruel fate. In his account, before his conviction
at the court, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji was assasinated in her Iyaganku,
Ibadan residence. As fate would have it, some of the suspects arrested in
connection with the Suliat Adedeji's case were in the same cell with him.

"One day, I saw the owner of the Sawmill where I was said to have robbed
come in to see one of the suspects. I then pleaded with the suspect to
please use his acquaintance with the Alhaji to plead with him to withdraw
the case since I have been told he is the complainant. That suspect, a big
man in the society, told me blankly that if I could make a statement
indicting Alhaji Timaiyu, I will be set free immediately. I could not stop
wondering what had happened to make the 2 men such bitter enemies."

That was how Lekan succumbed to pressure, signed a statement indicting
himself to Sergeant Agboola Akinyemi who was his investigating police
officer. Akinyemi has since died after being ignominiously dismissed from
the police for corruption. Several groups and individuals aside Awosode
had tried in vain to rescue Lekan from death. At a point, the driver who
drove the armed robbers to the sawmill was granted amnesty by the
government of Alhaji Lam Adesina, but Lekan was not that lucky.

While in the prison, he met the armed robbers who actually committed the
robbery for which he was to die. They had gone on another operation and
had been arrested there. While exchanging experiences in the cell, they
told Ibitoye they were the ones who did the 'job'. At this time,
Abdulfatai Bakre, a lawyer and zonal director, of Legal Aid Council was
visiting the cell in a religious capacity. By then, Lekan had spent 10
years and some months on the death row with the 4 others condemned on the
case.

Bakre was initially hesistant, but having listened to the actual robbers'
account and knowing the legal implications of having spent over 10 years
on the death row, he fired a petition to the Oyo State government, Otunba
Christopher Alao-Akala to exercise his prerogative of mercy. God was on
their side, Alao-Akala ordered their release and on October 9, 2007,
Ibitoye and his co-travellers in the ship of fate disembarked, after an
obviously tiring journey.

For now, Ibitoye is free but struggling. His wife left him after waiting
for 10 years. He has remarried to an Islamic evangelist he met while in
jail but his means of livelihood is gone. Socially ostracised, sometimes
even though innocent, he says that he has again written a letter appealing
to the Oyo State governor who colluded with God to return his life to also
assist restore his fortunes.

He is living on the goodwill of his wife and his over 80 years old
mother.Please, help me appeal to the governor, I am a law-abiding citizen
to this state, and I promise to justify whatever help he extends to me for
a means of livelihood. For very many things, Lekan keeps thanking God that
his fate was not like that of Wasiu Adeyemi of Ogbomosho, or Wasiu Rafiu,
a driver on the Lagos-Ibadan route who was befriending the same girl as a
police informant and got roped in as an armed robber. He was also executed
while Lekan was marking his time.

Today Sule is dead, but Lekan is alive to not only live again, but also
tell the world the truth about his ordeal. Barrister Awosode assured that
Ibitoye's case cannot be repeated again since with the coming of
democracy, the issue of the death penalty had become a thing of the past.
Barrister Bakare also noted that since there was nowroom for appeal,
innocence people have now been provided with a leeway of escape from
deaths like those the 2 Wasius.

(source: Nigerian Tribune)