The Christmas gifts given to international human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe by recently-pardoned death row prisoner, Sunday Jackson for his children have been delivered to them.

Barrister Ogebe had conveyed the gifts to His Royal Majesty the Hama Bachama Shaga Ismaila who incidentally was also in Abuja last week for a conclave of some Middle Belt traditional rulers and pleaded with him to kindly deliver them from his incarcerated subject.

Despite his busy schedule, consummating a communal peace truce, hosting a Bwatiye cultural festival amongst others, his royal majesty hosted the daughters of Sunday Jackson at his palace where he personally presented the Christmas gifts to them.

Ogebe said in addition to the school bags Jackson’s fellow inmates manufactured and gave him for his children, his own daughter in America gave him stuffed toy animals for them as well.

The lawyer said a tradition he learnt in America was buying Christmas gifts for children of incarcerated parents and that this year his church was also doing same.

“It’s a cool coincidence that I was able to put mine inside the bags that Jackson gave as well for the kids. Let me clarify that this is beyond the value of the gifts. This is about the gift of hope. In the 10 years and 10 months he’s been in prison, he’s never sent anything home. What did he even have and what was the point when it would only be a reminder of his impending execution? But now things have changed.”

Ogebe marveled that just two Christmases ago, he brought back from deathrow in Indonesia, a Nigerian convicted under the mistaken identity of “Emmanuel Ihejirika” after 20 years and now he was privileged to bring back Jackson after 10 years – both despite final Supreme Court judgements against them.

“I’m exceptionally blessed. Most lawyers will never have one in their career much less two in two years. Most lawyers end at the Supreme Court and when the money finishes. That’s when we start and we did it pro bono. Neither of them could ever afford my services. I flew to Indonesia twice and to Nigeria about five times over 18 years for Ihejirika’s case alone. He was the only awaiting-execution Nigerian prisoner to be reprieved over a decade after Indonesian Supreme Court’s final judgement. It would have broken my heart if I couldn’t do for Jackson in Nigeria what Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim nation – did for a Nigerian abroad,” the award-winning lawyer mused.

“Both occurring on Christmas eve reminds me of the original Christmas. Remember that the birth of Jesus was not salvation but the hope of salvation. He ultimately paid the death penalty that pardoned us for eternity.

“As has been said, ‘We owed a debt we could not pay, he paid a debt he did not owe’.”

•PHOTO: His Royal Majesty Ismail Shaga the Hama Bachama with Jackson’s daughters and their Christmas guests from their father and his lawyer’s daughter at the palace

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