By Godwin Onyeacholem
“Oh, No. Not Again, Supreme Court!” That was the sorrowful scream echoing from the Supreme Court as soon as it upheld the death sentence by hanging which a high court in Yola had earlier passed on Sunday Jackson in 2021. It was a loud, heart-rending spontaneous cry of gross miscarriage of justice by those who witnessed the judgment on Friday, May 7, 2025.
It has to be nothing else because this case is sufficiently straightforward for the court to deliver untainted justice. A man defended himself from an aggressor who launched an attack on him with a weapon, and in the process, the aggressor died. How come it is the man who fought back from being killed that the court has now slated for the hangman’s noose? This is where the puzzle lies.
Jackson acted in self-defence. He owed himself the duty to protect his own life regardless of the outcome. This is why one passionately appeals to Governor Umaru Fintiri of Adamawa State to step in and use the power of his office to save him from an undeserved execution.
Here are the facts. Sometime in 2015, Jackson, 29, a farmer and student from the Dong community in the Demsa local government area of Adamawa State, was working in his farm in the Kodomti community in the Numan local government area when a herdsman, Buba Ardo Bawuro, casually herded his animals into his farm to feed on his crops. When Jackson challenged him, he pulled out a knife in the typical herdsmen fashion and violently attacked the farmer. Despite his injuries, Jackson was able to overpower him, seize the knife and stab him in return, and the attacker later died from his wounds.
Jackson was arrested and tried in Yola High Court for culpable homicide punishable with death under Section 211 of the penal code. He admitted that his attacker died as a result of the duel, but he said he was not guilty of any offence. The prosecution urged the trial judge, Fatima Ahmed Tafida, to convict Jackson based on his confessional statement. But Jackson’s lawyer countered, praying the court to discharge and acquit his client because he acted in self-defence.
Then in February 2021, the judge handed out a curious judgment. She held that because Jackson had confessed that he killed the herdsman, he too must die by hanging. That the farmer only defended himself from being killed too struck no meaning with her. The judge reasoned, rather strangely, that he should have fled the scene the moment he gained the advantage over his attacker. But how could he have fled when he had already been stabbed in the leg among other places? This fact was made known to the judge, yet she still came to that queer verdict of death sentence.
Death by hanging for a case of self-defence? If there should be any charge at all, it ought not to be anything other than manslaughter instead of murder, which carries the death penalty.
For the record, it must be pointed out that for a capital punishment offence that ought to have been tried within one week, where the defendant had owned up straight off that the assailant died from the affray, Jackson was kept in custody for six years before the trial started.
And second, it has to be mentioned that in violation of the law, this judgment was delivered well after the statutory 90 days within which judgments must be delivered after the adoption of the final addresses by lawyers to both parties. What this means is that this judgment ought not to stand at all under normal circumstances.
The Supreme Court had the golden opportunity to use this case to, at least, redeem itself to some extent from a growing public perception of a court of prejudice and compromise rooted in transaction, but it bungled it in a big way. The court barely spent five minutes reading its judgment and rather than call out the horrible legal breaches around the case, it handed down an egregious travesty in place of substantial justice.
By upholding the trial court’s death sentence on Sunday Jackson, the country’s highest court criminalizes self-defence. Thus, it has effectively chilled the citizen’s resolve to defend themselves in the face of an obvious threat to life. Yet, self-defence is not a crime known to any law in Nigeria.
As the judicial system has failed Sunday Jackson, Governor Fintiri is obliged to step in—and all lovers of justice appeal to him to do so—and take immediate steps to save Jackson in the interest of rational justice. No one must die for standing on their feet and subduing a violent intruder who is out to take their life.
Special commendation goes to Emmanuel Ogebe, a US-based international human rights lawyer, and Dr. William Terence Devlin, an American human rights leader, not just for defending and supporting Jackson all through but also for their consistent advocacy for justice and human rights across continents.
Onyeacholem works at African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL)
