The police in Enugu on Friday arraigned a seven-year-old boy, Chibuike Miracle Oramalu, before a magistrate’s court over alleged murder.
Chibuike, a primary two pupil, had on May 29, accidentally fired a gun, which killed a 12-year-old boy, Oluebube Boniface.
The incident occurred in the Independence Layout area of Enugu.
The gun belonged to Mr. Edwin Oforma, who employed Chibuike’s mother as a cleaner and housekeeper in his house.
Chibuike accidentally fired the shot after discovering the gun in Oforma’s room while making the bed, as he was instructed by Chukwunanu, Oforma’s son.
Following the incident, the boy was initially detained by the police from May 30 till July 13, when he was released.
Although Chibuike’s mother, Mrs Nwakaego Oramalu, and her lawyer, Mr. Olu Omotayo, of the Civil Rights Realisation and Advancement Network, had raised the alarm over the little boy’s detention, the Enugu State Police Command claimed he was in “protective custody.”
However, about two weeks after his release, Chibuike was on Friday arraigned, without prior notice, before an Enugu Magistrate’s Court over alleged conspiracy and murder.
The owner of the gun which Chibuike accidentally fired, Oforma, was arraigned alongside the seven-year-old boy before Magistrate Hillary Asogwa.
In the charge sheet, which was obtained by our correspondent, Chibuike and Oforma were, in count one, accused of conspiring among themselves to commit murder.
In count two, the seven-year-old boy and Oforma were accused of murdering Oluebube.
Oforma, in count three, was charged with unlawful possession of the double-barrelled gun.
Chibuike was represented at the arraignment by Omotayo, who argued before the court that the boy was a minor and therefore incapable of committing crime.
At the end of the proceedings, the magistrate ruled that Chibuike, being a minor, could not be remanded in prison custody.
He, therefore, released the boy to the mother on bond.
But Oforma, the owner of the gun, was remanded in prison custody.
Omotayo explained afterwards that Chibuike’s mother informed him that the police told her to bring the boy on Friday morning, only for the boy to be marched to court on their arrival at the Police Headquarters, Enugu.
Chibuike’s mother, Nwakaego, while narrating how her son got involved in the alleged murder, had disclosed that on the fateful day, while she was away, the son of her employer, Chukwunanu, a National Youth Service Corps member, asked Chibuike and his 10-year-old elder brother, Ifeanyichukwu, to clean and tidy up his father’s room.
The two children proceeded to carry out the assignment – Ifeanyichukwu swept the room while Chibuike laid the bed.
In the course of the assignment, Chibuike saw a gun near the bed and took it to his brother, Ifeanyichukwu, who asked him to return it.
But, according to the mother, while Chibuike was returning the gun, he mistakenly pulled the trigger, releasing a bullet which hit the late Oluebube, who was in the next compound, in the chest.
Oluebube died instantly.
Following Chibuike’s detention, the lawyer, Omotayo, forwarded a petition to the Inspector-General of Police, demanding the boy’s release, saying the boy’s detention was “a brutal attack on the rights of the child in Nigeria” and “a very dangerous dimension to rights violations by the Nigeria Police.”
But the Commissioner of Police, Enugu State, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu, said the boy was not detained but was in ‘protective custody’ as, according to him, some people wanted to lynch him after the accidental killing of Oluebube.
In a telephone interview with our correspondent, Omotayo said the police erred by arraigning a seven-year-old boy.
“They should not have arraigned him in the first place because he is a minor,” the lawyer stressed.
The lawyer on Friday petitioned the Police Service Commission to protest against the arraignment.
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