In a recent interview with Arise TV, Dr. William Terence Devlin, an American human rights leader who has been supporting Mr. Sunday Jackson, and Emmanuel Ogebe is a member of his defense team and a U.S.-based human rights lawyer condemn the confirmation of a death sentence by the Supreme Court, arguing that their client acted in self defence. Transcript:

Charles Aniagolu: Now, you may not have heard of him, but Sunday Jackson, a former student in his early 30s, is facing death by hanging after Nigeria’s Supreme Court today upheld the judgment of a lower court in Adamawa State. Mr. Jackson was a student turned farmer who says he was violently attacked on his farm in Codonti Forest in the Numan local government area in Adamawa State, by a Fulani herdsman known as Buba Bawuro.

The herdsman had strayed into Mr. Jackson’s farm with his animals, and after Mr. Jackson challenged him, he apparently pulled a knife and a fight ensued. He stabbed Mr. Jackson a couple of times, but he managed to retrieve the knife and to stab his attacker in the neck, whereupon he died. Mr. Jackson was arrested and charged with murder.

He's consistently argued that it was self defense. In 2021 he was found guilty by a court in Yola and condemned to death by hanging. And today, the Supreme Court in Abuja upheld that judgment. So he's now In a race for his life and the only option left is to appeal for clemency from the governor of Adamawa State.

So what hope does he now have of a reprieve? For more on this case, I’m joined now in the studio by a member of his defense team, the U.S based human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, and by Dr. William Terence Devlin, an American human rights leader who has been supporting Mr. Jackson. Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for coming in.

Let me start with you, Emmanuel, just briefly. Give us the background to this case and what led to Sunday Jackson ending up on death row.

Ogebe: Yes. So this is really a sad day, I think, for Nigerians and their rights to self defense. Nigerians already have to provide their own security, electricity, infrastructure, and now they can’t even defend themselves without being sentenced to death.

And I think all of us should be very alarmed by this very unfortunate precedent.

In February of 2021, we read in the news about Jackson’s death sentence just as we’re coming into Nigeria. So we flew to Yola and I met with his counsel. He was so poor that it was legal aid counsel that helped him. And so I looked through a copy of the judgment and on the spot, in that initial review, I saw that there was a 167 day lapse between the close of arguments and the judgment.

Now our constitution specifically says it has to be within 90 days. Now the legal aid council hadn’t even found it. That shows you the quality of representation that he had or lack thereof. So Mr. Jackson has been failed at every possible level by the system.

Charles: And, but couldn’t you adduce that argument at the Supreme Court?

Ogebe: Here’s the thing. I was initially working with the Legal Aid Council, to prepare an appeal. I traveled back to the US. When I came back, his counsel had changed. And a group that I’m affiliated with, had taken over. And I knew the chap in charge. I reached out to him and drew his attention to this fact.

And he also had marshaled all the facts and threw them all in but the sad thing is despite everything and the case is so clear because this man retrieved the knife of his attacker so it wasn’t his own knife… but one thing that really stands out to me is I was talking to my dentist today about this and a dentist said to me, “what happened to the charge of manslaughter?”

Because at the very worst, if he had to be charged with something, it would be manslaughter.

He did not know that chap before that day. He couldn’t have premeditated this. And, I believe that this is one of those cases that when it was brought by the police to the DPP, the Director of Public Prosecution, the DPP’s advice should have killed this case. This man has no case to answer. And now he’s sentenced to death.

He’s exhausted all legal channels, and is awaiting execution.

Charles: How did you get involved in this case?

Devlin: Yeah, Barrister Emmanuel and I have been working for a number of years here in Nigeria on human rights issues. And this is a sad day, Charles, for human rights in Nigeria. Sunday Jackson, and I’m not a lawyer, I’m a human rights advocate.

Sunday Jackson. By anyone’s estimation is totally innocent and the issue where this man was out farming minding his own business and then the attacker came and a struggle ensued and of course this man is going to defend himself- that’s why we call it self defense. And yet today, we were at the Nigerian Supreme Court And it was very brief.

It was only about maybe two minutes long. And we just wept at the failure of the Nigerian Supreme Court to say that this man, and they had the opportunity to say this man was totally innocent. We haven’t seen all the ins and outs of the decision, but we had the opportunity to meet this humble farmer. This young man who unfortunately his wife abandoned him, been in, on death row for 10 years.

Sunday Jackson has now become an international case for human rights. And so we’re going to continue to advocate for it.

Charles: I was going to ask you what the, what are the international dimensions of this case?

Devlin: the international dimensions are Open Doors, which is a human rights organization, has recounted that there have been thousands of killings of Christians by Fulanis. And so as a human rights advocate and as a pastor, I’m here to advocate for this man who was totally innocent. So it has international implications. The eyes of human rights advocates are now on Nigeria. Like how could this happen? How could this possibly happen by anyone’s estimation, as Barrister said earlier, manslaughter at least because Murder one that he’s being convicted of and may face hanging if we can’t get clemency for him.

It has to be premeditated. So what justice on the Nigerian Supreme Court that didn’t pop up and say to, to him or her, this is a case of self defense and this man is totally innocent. We encourage people to commit. Continue to pray for Sunday Jackson and his innocence.

Charles: Emmanuel, what was the prosecution’s argument?

I understand that they urged the court to convict Mr. Jackson solely on his confessional statement and based on the fact that death had occurred.

So basically, no mitigating circumstances and that was pretty much how the judge saw it.

Ogebe: Yes, so part of the problem is they are arguing that Yes He had a responsibility to flee.

Now, in the US, we have stand your ground rules, which means you can defend yourself as much as you want. Now, here, they’re arguing that instead of fight, you should have flight, you should flee.

Charles: In other words, after he overpowered…

Ogebe: Yes,

Charles: And retrieved the knife…

Ogebe: Yes.

Charles: there was no further need to stab him.

Ogebe: Yes. But that is not accurate. And I don’t think that’s fair to make someone who is facing imminent death. Now, just the data alone of all the massacres that have occurred, he couldn’t have known if there were more herdsmen on their way to kill him. He has seen reports of what these people do.

This guy just stabbed him. And so to expect him to reasonably assume that to fulfill the conditions of the law he needed to flee made no sense.

Charles: Yeah, but nevertheless, do remember that a lot of Nigerian law is based on English common law. And if you attack, if you go into somebody’s house to rob the person, I think it’s different in America.

It's that standard ground thing. You can actually shoot the person. If you did that in the UK, you’d be charged with murder.

Ogebe: yeah, but here’s the issue. The issue is that the attacker brought the knife. He overpowered him and took the knife after he sustained injuries. And this is where I have a problem.

The evidence shows that he was injured in the leg. And then you say that he should have run. So he was at that moment, momentarily incapacitated to even be able to run.

The facts are not In doubt. This man did not deny that his attacker died as a result of the attack. But the circumstances was “he attacked me, I was in fear for my life, and I fought back.”

Charles: Were there any witnesses?

Ogebe: There were no witnesses, but even the prosecution admitted that the weapon belonged to the attacker. The evidence Jackson had scars on his body of the injuries he sustained.

Charles: Okay, let me ask you, William. Yes. Are you now in the process of trying to reach out to political leaders in Adamawa State in order to Seek clemency, because that’s the only option, really, isn’t it?

Devlin: That’s the only option. We are bringing out, every possible person, method, ability, to be able to grant clemency to Mr. Sunday Jackson, who was totally innocent. And yes, we are on a fast track to alert people that here’s a man that you can stand up for from a human rights perspective. Be a hero today in Nigeria on the issue of human rights and stand up for this nobody.

Sunday Jackson, that’s totally innocent in spite of what the Nigerian Supreme Court said today. Yeah, we’re initiating and, we’re going full force on that.

Charles: And how much time has he actually got now?

Ogebe: we’re not sure what the timeline is now. And just to illustrate the level of disappointment, we had someone on standby to pick him up from prison today

And I couldn’t make the call to say he’s not going home. He’s going to be killed. His children are ill. We’ve had to take care of them. His wife abandoned him. And so even in this time, he’s not surrounded by his family and we’re going to put him to death. But I do want to make a quick, point here that we’re standing up not just for him, but for all of us.

The Fulani militia have killed thousands of Christians, they’ve killed, Muslims as well, and many of them are foreigners. So we have a situation where foreigners come and kill Nigerians with impunity and Nigerians can’t defend themselves. Yeah.

In, the Northwest right now, Laka Wura is a Fulani terrorist group that was invited to come and help stop the terrorism of Boko Haram and Bandits, and they’re now killing the people they came in to protect.

So Nigeria is under siege. And there are more Nigerian citizens on death row in Nigeria now for defending themselves against Fulani herdsmen than there are Fulani herdsmen in Nigerian prisons, on death row. That’s just wrong. It’s unacceptable.

Devlin: Upside down.

Charles: No idea how much time he’s actually got to make a ruling? No, There must be a period that allows for the clemency process to, to

Devlin: The court did not issue their opinion today and they said not till next week. We’re on a fast track and we just made an announcement. They made an announcement.

That’s why I said two minutes.

Ogebe: They had 30 judgments to deliver today so they said they couldn’t read everything and they’ll just give the conclusions. So all we heard was “dismissed” and we won’t know till next week. But I will contrast this with the death row case in Indonesia that we won.

Charles: I’m going to come to that in a minute because we’re fast running out of time.

But yes, he’s been in prison for 10 years. What must his mental state be?

Devlin: well, we saw him February 19th 2021. We went to Yola and we actually had access to visit with him and to pray for him. So here’s a man that has lost everything, simply because he was trying to defend himself and defend his family and defend his farm is as Barrister said.

How did Sunday Jackson know that there may be 20 other Fulanis that are coming right behind this gentleman who attacked him. His mental state, you can imagine being in prison for 10 years, losing your family, losing your children, losing your wife. The man is crushed and depressed and that’s why we are going to continue to advocate for the innocence of Sunday Jackson.

Charles: And Emmanuel, you were talking about Indonesia.

Ogebe: Yes.

Charles: You’ve done a lot of cases across the world. Tell us about that case in Indonesia where you got a Nigerian off death row and how that contrasts with what happened here in Nigeria.

Ogebe: Yes, so that was a fascinating case. It’s definitely one of the most complex cases I’ve had to deal with.

And the gentleman was convicted under the identity of “Emmanuel Ihejirika” which wasn’t his real name. The passport wasn’t his own passport so he ended up, by mistaken identity, getting a death sentence for crimes that he did not commit. And we had to prove that he was not a Sierra Leonean but a Nigerian.

And we couldn’t get the data from the NIS. And so That’s the Nigerian Immigration Services. So we had to conduct a DNA test on his brother from Ebonyi State here in Abuja. And then we had to do a DNA test on him in Indonesian prison to establish nationality. This is one of the most bizarre cases ever.

We had teams of lawyers working in Indonesia, Australia, Pakistan, and Malaysia, and then myself in the U.S.

And very fortunately for us, the Indonesian Supreme Court granted him a reprieve. And he came home after 20 years from a country that is the biggest Muslim country in the world. There’s a bit of racism in that country. And, Nigerians have a terrible reputation. But the Supreme Court set a poor Nigerian free and he came back maybe about a year ago to Nigeria. Yes.

The work that Sunny Akanni, the counsel on Jackson’s case did was fascinating. He’s won death row cases before but this was a big shocker to me.

And about the timeline quickly, I was going to say, in Indonesia, we came into the case after he had exhausted everything.

He was awaiting execution. But the Indonesian ambassador told me, here in Abuja, he said, “listen, 27 days to his execution, you have a right to file an additional appeal.”

So we went around the world and we gathered our data. We had huge briefs and when he was told he was going to be executed, we submitted our appeal and a couple of years later, the court said, “We’re going to overturn his death sentence.” So in our case in Nigeria, we don’t know the clock we’re working with, but definitely time is of the essence to get him off.

Charles: But on a final word, he now essentially is in a race for his life.

Devlin: He is. He is in a race for his life. And this Indonesian case was a great day of celebration because we brought that gentleman home and landed here in Abuja on Christmas Day of all things.

We’re going to be with Sunday Jackson until the final lap of this, and we are hoping to God that our prayers will be answered, and we ask others to pray, Charles, and thank you for bringing attention to Sunday Jackson, this innocent man.

Charles: Thank you for bringing that story to us, and we’re very encouraged by the work that you do, both of you, and keep doing it.

Charles: Dr. William Terence Devlin is an American human rights leader who’s been supporting Mr. Jackson. And of course, Emmanuel Ogebe is a member of his defense team and he’s a U. S. based human rights lawyer. Thank you very much indeed to both of you.

Devlin: Thank you, Charles.