IN the era of one of the civilian governors of Oyo State, Nigeria, an innocent man suffered for an offence he did not commit.  

Some robbers had just raided a place and vanished into the thin air.  Shortly afterwards, some policemen came searching for the robbers and this innocent man who coincidentally was returning home from office after the day’s job came into the scene. He was arrested.  

The policemen took him as a suspect and locked him inside their cell labeling his case an armed robbery incident.  He was later sentenced to death in the court.  The then state governor approved the death sentence and he was promptly executed.  Yes later, the culprit was caught in another armed robbery case and he then confessed to the crime, but the innocent man had been executed already.

A few years ago while I was in New York City in the United States of America, I saw in a newspaper the picture of a man who had been in prison for 13 years serving out a term of imprisonment for an infraction he knew nothing about. How did this happen?

During summer while the sun is high some white ladies go to the park, pull off their clothes and take cold baths.  One day as a particular lady was doing this a serial rapist stalked behind, raped her and disappeared.  An innocent black man who was strolling past was caught, beaten and locked up and was later jailed because he was believed to be the culprit.

Later, the serial rapist had raped another lady but this time he was caught and arraigned in court.  During his trial, he declared “The Mr. Theophilus {referring to the black man in jail}, you people jailed 13 years ago, you better release him.  If not, God will deal with all of you.  I am the one who committed the crime”.   

The enforcement agents reopened Mr. Theophilus’ case,  reinvestigated it and proved his innocence. 

They apologized to him and released him.  But for 13 years he had been severed from his family, made to lose a lot of life opportunities and suffered for an offence he did not commit.  He was made to suffer injustice.  

In his book, To encourage the others, David Yallop, the author of In God’s Name forced the British government to reopen the Craig/Bentley murder case. The author went further to do a documentary of it which convinced a lot of people that a miscarriage of justice had been done in the case. The author was proved right.