Photo credit: ABC news
A total of seventy-six protesters have been charged to court with felony counts, including treason, destruction of property, public disturbance and mutiny in a Nigerian court for participating in a protest of the country’s record cost-of-living crisis.
AP reports that twenty-nine children aged between 14 and 17 years are among the accused. The minors could be facing a death sentence if found guilty. Four of them were said to have collapsed in court due to exhaustion before they could enter a plea.
In August, at least twenty people were shot dead, and hundreds more were arrested at a protest demanding better opportunities and jobs for young people.
The death sentence was introduced in the 1970s in Nigeria. However, there have been no executions in the country since 2016.
A private lawyer based in Abuja, Akintayo Balogun, said the Child Rights Act does not allow any child to be subject to criminal proceedings and sentenced to death. He said, “So taking minors before a federal high court is wrong, ab initio, except if the government is able to prove that the boys are all above 19 years of age.”
According to Marshal Abubakar, counsel for some of the boys, the court eventually granted $5,900 bail to each defendant and imposed stringent conditions they have yet to meet. He said, “A country that has a duty to educate its children will decide to punish those children. These children have been in detention for 90 days without food.”
Yemi Adamolekun, executive director of Enough is Enough, a civil society organization promoting good governance in Nigeria, said authorities have no business prosecuting children. He said, “The chief justice of Nigeria should be ashamed; she is a woman and a mother.”
Nigeria is one of the top crude oil producers in Africa, but it remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Chronic corruption means the lifestyle of its public officials rarely mirrors that of the general population. The country’s medical professionals often strike to protest meager wages,
The country’s politicians are some of the best-paid in the world, yet they are often accused of corruption. Even the president’s wife—her office is nowhere in the constitution—is entitled to SUVs and other luxuries funded by taxpayers.
Nigeria’s population of over 210 million people, the continent’s largest, is also among the hungriest in the world, and its government has struggled to create jobs. The inflation rate is at a 28-year high, and the local naira currency is at a record low against the dollar.
On Thursday, Nigeria was classified as a “hotspot of very high concern” in a report from the United Nations’ food agencies, as large numbers of people are facing or are projected to face critical levels of acute food insecurity in the West African country.
