"I will never grant your request..." ~ Justice Okon Abang to Olisa Metuh!

By Ena Ofugara On Olisa Metuh's Judge Statement, Michael Dedon Discusses the Law like He was Lord Denning. "It is a shame that your party was in power for 16 years and could not build a standard hospital in Nigeria." "And you have the guts to approach this court for permission to travel abroad on medical ground." "I will never grant your request but if you are an ordinary person I will do so." ~ Justice Okon Abang to Olisa Metuh! With the above statement credited to the judge, it is apparent that the judge is bias and that there will likely be a miscarriage of justice. It does not matter whether or not Olisa Metuh is guilty of the offence with which he is charged what is certain is that the judge has prejudged him guilty and is just bidding his time to sentence him even though Olisa Metuh did not hold any public office and refuse to build a public hospital as charged by the Judge. There is a universal standard of justice and the overriding consideration is the impartiality of the judge or arbiter. A judge who is overtly hostile to an accused person cannot be said to be impartial. Nothing illustrates this position better than the celebrated case of Sacco and Vanzetti. In 1921, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both Italian-Americans, were convicted of robbery and murder. Although the arguments brought against them were mostly disproven in court, the fact that the two men were known radicals (and that their trial took place during the height of the Red Scare) prejudiced the judge and jury against them. The two Italian immigrants to the US were subsequently executed after a protracted trial by the electric chair on August 23, 1927 at the Charlestown State Prison in the US. It is not certain to this day whether the two men committed the offences with which they were charged but what was certain was that the trial Judge was not impartial. The trial Judge literally profiled them as fucking Italian anarchists during the trial and there was no doubt he was prejudiced them. This was so because both men adhered to an anarchist movement that advocated relentless warfare against a violent and oppressive government which goes against the grain at the time in the US. Many people viewed their trial as unfair and riots that broke out after their executions destroyed property in Paris, London, and other cities around the world together with terrorist bomb blasts in the US that killed scores of people. In 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names", even though he did not go far to proclaim them innocent. My take is that the Judge should recuse himself from trying the case as he has exposed himself as not being unbiased and apolitical. If he does not do the needful, any conviction had will be overturned and a retrial ordered by an appellate court. He can save everybody the time and resources of a retrial by stepping aside now so that another Judge can try the case. A Judge is not supposed to wear his political affiliations as a badge or get into the arena of conflict and thereby get himself blinded by the dust of controversy.