THE Federal Government has been ordered to pay N30 million as compensation to Helen Joshua for the unlawful murder of her son, Solomon Andy, by an operative of the Nigerian Army in 2017.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court sitting in Abuja gave the order in a judgment on Tuesday.
Solomon, 30, was killed by one Abel Ocheme, a soldier attached to Command Secondary School Kaduna, in 2017.
Ocheme killed Solomon while he was packing sand from a gutter close to the soldier’s duty post.
In the suit filed before the ECOWAS court, the plaintiff, Helen Joshua, was represented by Gloria Mabeiam Ballason, while the Nigerian government was represented by Maimuna Shiru.
In its judgment, the court ruled that the killing of “the poor, defenseless and harmless” Solomon who was eking out a means of livelihood by the soldier “was unlawful, cruel, inhuman and degrading”.
The three-man panel of the court presided over by Justice Gberi-be Ouattara maintained that Federal Republic of Nigeria failed to uphold its obligations unde Articles 1, 4, 5 and 12 of the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights which mandates states to protect the sanctity and dignity of every life.
The court maintained that the Nigerian state owed the deceased a duty of care which it failed to discharge and did not show the requisite abhorrence for the violation of the right to life of her citizen.
According to the court, it was “grossly humiliating and a violation of the right inherent in man” for the Nigerian Army to confiscate Solomon’s body and leave it in an advancing degenerative state of disrepair since June 9, 2017, when the killing occured till the time of the judgment.
The court therefore ordered the Nigerian government to pay N25 million to the applicant as compensation for the wrongful and unlawful killing of her son Solomon.
The Nigerian government was also ordered to pay an additional N5 million as cost of burial.
The court also ordered the defendant to immediately release the body of the deceased to his family.
Reacting to the judgment, the plaintiff, Helen Joshua, speaking through her counsel, Ballason, thanked the court for ensuring that justice prevailed in the matter.
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