[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Being a keen Student of World History and a Graduate of the University of Ife Medical School, our Foundation Dean, Thomas Adesanya Ige Grillo, LRCP&S, DSc, FMCP, FMCS FRS, insisted we lived throughout our scholastic years among Students of The Law and other Faculties because he wanted us to know about Tort, Crime and figure out exactly how lawyers think.
Practicing in the USA for over four decades has made me appreciate and respect this visionary and remarkable Medical Educationist even more. Giving expert evidence and “wiggling” out of two Torts visited on me by the negligence of others unscathed, have been made possible by my clinical judgment honed by my exposure to Law at Ife, while sharing Hostel and Town Living premises with lawyers and mingling with them extensively in those University of Ife years. It was America that made me appreciate just how sound the Street Sense of my Educational Experience at Ife was.
Having read the Rome Statute of 2002 a few times, let me state without prejudice that the Nigerian Authorities have mismanaged this Lekki Toll Gate Incident. When I saw the shooting in real time that evening streaming on Facebook, I said to myself, the “Muzungus” ( Oyinbo’s) as New Yorkers say, will read these Digital Signals and Images of evidence like a BOOK. That is why cell phones are called smart phones, and digital cameras are indeed smart cameras. When the spent rifle casings were shown by the shell-shocked kids at the toll gate in real time, I said to myself, how could they leave such incriminating forensic evidence? Don’t they teach these senior Military and Police Officers about the Rome Statute at Kuru and Jaji NIPSS and Staff College? Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the Law!
I saw a man shot at close range with the lower chest open and the heart still beating while the lungs were struggling to expand after losing the negative inner thoracic cavity pressure from “A Flail Open Chest Wound”. I have examined that trauma tape so many times and something occurred to me: the wound could have been caused by the Plastic Filler in Blank Rifle Bullets fired at close range. A lot of that ammunition was manufactured in 2005. Many kinds of smokeless gunpowder lose their stability in hot weather and form incombustible “cake particles” when they deteriorate. A Blank or a Tracer Bullet fired with smokeless powder that has deteriorated will disproportionately energize that “caked particle” and make it lightning fast and lethal, especially at the close range that the engagement took place. The caking shrinks the gunpowder and creates more expansion room for the gas which increases the muzzle energy. I worry that this sequential release of information may not augur well for the Nigerian Government. Only God knows what other digital information the Americans have.
CNN is an American icon like Clint Eastwood. Americans revere and guard their institutional icons. CNN must be receiving more assistance from American “Experts” in deep forensic analysis , masters of imagery analysis and enhancement, as well as ballistics experts. And with what they have put out so far, they are not finished yet.
A few days ago, the USA State Department stepped into this Lekki Shooting debacle after our Information Minister, a lawyer, spoke and wrote a letter threatening sanctions on CNN. Meanwhile #ENDSARS organizers and victims who escaped from Nigeria are already in North America “spilling out their guts”.
Soldiers, Policemen, Military Officers, Cabinet Ministers, State Governors, State Commissioners, Morgue Workers, Institutional Health Workers, Members of the Judiciary and Lawyers involved in this issue are all Public Servants and public service is a sacred trust to the people you serve. Certain acts of disservice can amount to a degree of Crimes against Humanity under the Rome Statute. In this case, my learned legal colleagues will agree that the events of 20/10/20 went well beyond all four elements of Tort to Serious Crimes committed at the Lekki toll gate. Many of these public servants in the categories listed above stand the risk of self-incrimination either by ignorance or out of plain stupidity and are at risk of Complicity to a Serious International Criminal matter that continues to expand in its ramifications. Lying and Concealment leave you very open to becoming an accessory to Violations of the Rome Statute.
I remember the words of Sir Hartley Shawcross, QC. Attorney General of England and Wales, the lead Prosecutor for Britain at the Nuremberg Trials of the rest of the miserable 22 members of the top Nazi Leadership left over after Hitler, Goering, Himmler, Borman, Linge and the rest of their Co- Workers in Genocide had availed the Nuremberg Tribunal of the indignity of their trial and execution, by committing suicide, and I quote his opening statements:
“There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience”
Dealing with a very poorly choreographed cover up of a Serious Crime, exposes many others to Complicity. The bodies of the deceased have not been given the dignity of decent interments by their grieving families after well conducted post-postmortems and Forensic Analysis. In the eyes of the “Muzungu”, denying the families of the victims of crime the right to know what and how their loved ones died and burying them afterwards with dignity, exposes some of the latter group of Public Officials listed above to being accessories to the Commission of Crimes against Humanity. If I were The State Commissioner of Health, I would seek serious legal advice to ascertain if a refusal to treat the bodies of the victims removed from the “Crime Scene” to Institutions under my jurisdiction for peacetime custody is within the tenets of my Hippocratic Oath and not in Violation of parts of Part 7 of the Rome Statue, by not ordering immediate postmortems, forensic analysis and release of the bodies to the families after proper identification.
From my interpretation of Sections of the Rome Statute, for those who have not read the Rome Statute/Act,Article 7 -1(i) and 7 -1(k) 7-2(I), it puts the Commissioner of Health of Lagos State directly in Violation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which has been in force since the 1st of July 2002.
If I were him, as a Physician serving as the Chief Health Officer of Lagos State, I would seek first class Legal advice. I can bet my last $$$ That these “Muzungus” have that morgue at The Mainland Hospital under constant long range digital surveillance. As for Information Minister Lai Mohammed, he should read not just the Rome Statute/ Act but the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the USA. This is not a situation for a man to show too much “ENTHU”. Floreat .
Back to Lord Hartley Shawcross the Baron, Knight, PC, QC. Attorney General of England and Wales and Chief British Prosecutor at Nuremberg. A budding medical student until fate made him an interpreter for French to English and vice versa and his socialist clients advised him to be called to the bar if he wanted to become a politician. After graduating with a 1st Class, he became an astute criminal defense lawyer famous for inducing acquittals in murder cases, and he excelled at prosecuting murder cases. Despite a reputation for eccentricity, this thorough rascal who refused the appointment to become the Chief Justice, because of his political ambition, as fate would have it, he contested for an MP’s position on the Labor platform that kicked Sir Winston Churchill out of office in 1945 and he became a MP and Attorney General of England and Wales to become the Chief British Prosecutor at the greatest criminal trial of the last century. His brilliance outshone the Russian, and other European prosecutors, giving no chance to some press people who tried to move a narrative that Nuremberg was a vindictive trial of the Victors over their Vanquished Enemy. When he was done, he put paid to not just that, but his statement at the close of the trial at Nuremberg advanced appropriate answer to a lot of Information Minister Lai Mohammed’s arguments justifying the presence and use of Firearms that evening. Lord Shawcross maintained that “Each of you was a party to Common Murder in its most Ruthless forms.”
After eloping at the age of 95 in 1997 to Gibraltar, he married Susanne Jansen. He died in 2003 aged 10, she outlived him by 10 years. May those words of iron spoken at Nuremberg to the 22 miserable Military and Civilian Nazi Chiefs forever guide humanity. Let us remember that 12 of them were sentenced to death. The laws broken at Lekki Toll Gate on 20/10/20 were laws that Nigeria was party to and were in existence well before the crimes were committed. Were the Rascally Peer able to communicate to the participants in the Lekki Shooting and the subsequent cover up today, he would most likely repeat what he said about each defendant being a party to common murder in its most ruthless form. As for the Rome Statute /Act, Laws governing the Lekki Toll Gate Incident , May those who were not privy to the Crime and its premeditation not become accessories after the fact by being guilty of cover up and not treating the remains of those shot appropriately further complicates issues. Section 7 is a must read to all concerned.
You don’t err and take on an American icon like CNN in a bid to cover up your transgressions certainly not in this Digital Age. The land of the free and home of the brave will fight back quietly but surely in staccato-like form. Along with Canada and Britain, they will act in concert and independently and God have mercy on anybody found to be foul of Section 7 of that Rome Statute.
Lord Shawcross spoke for all Victims of Crimes against Humanity of all times, including the victims at Lekki Toll Gate of 10/20/20 or 20/10/20 when a group of Protesters against Police Tyranny singing their National Anthem and waving the National flag were turned into targets of Genocide.
May the bodies of the departed souls of the victims be properly accounted for and treated ethically.
John Mabayoje MD
Attending Physician
Sheffield Alabama USA
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]