NOSTALGIA: OGEDEGBE-OWOH-OJUOLAPE ...FIRST SET OF DRUG DEALERS TO FACE FIRING-SQUAD IN NIGERIA

The war on drug smuggling in Nigeria became effective under the military rule of General Muhammadu Buhari, who was in power between 31^st  December, 1983 and 27^th August, 1985. The Buhari government enacted a De­cree 20, which had a retro­active effect and carried the death penalty.

Bernard Ogedegbe (29), Bathlomew Owoh (26) and La­wal Ojuolape (30), became first casualty of Decree 20 which stipulated death penalty for drug dealings in Nigeria. The case of Owoh drew particular global attention be­cause at the time the offence was committed, the maximum punishment in the country’s legal code was six months imprisonment.

 The execution of these three young men then was seen as an offence not worthy it by many Nigerians. To put it in a plain language, one of those three, Ogedengbe – was executed for a crime that did not carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. However, military regime said that they took those actions to clean up the country and restore dignity to the citizenry.  

In an interview with Al Jazeera television, sometimes ago, Buhari  said :“The question of executing people was about people dealing in drugs. We said cocaine and associated drugs were not developed or produced in Nigeria. People who want to make money at the expense of health, lives of people go to the countries that produce these substanc­es and make Nigeria a tran­sit camp for drugs, destroy­ing Nigerian communities and extend the destruction even to developed countries just to make money. We were concerned that if people want to make money, they should go out and work hard and make money, not to go and bring drugs, sell it and destroy our youth, sell it and destroy other countries just to make money. We made the law, that whoever did it should be executed. Let him go and make the money else­where, not in Nigeria. 

In an interview granted the Sun Newspapers some years back wher President (then General) Muhammadu Buhari those who destroyed others shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the loot.
Here's the excerpt:

Before I come to that, there was also this issue of Decree 4, alleged drug peddlers who your regime ordered shot. Looking back now, do you think you made mistake in those areas?
You see, maybe my rigidity could be traced to our insistence on the laws we made. But we decided that the laws must be obeyed.

But they said it was retroactive.
Yes, they said so. But I think it should be in the archive; we said that whoever brought in drugs and made Nigeria a transit point committed an offence.
These drugs, We We (Indian hemp), is planted here, but the hard drug, cocaine, most Nigerians don’t know what cocaine is. They just made Nigeria a transit point and these people did it just to make money. You can have a certain people who grow Ashisha or We We and so on because it is indigenous. Maybe some people are even alleging that those who want to come for operation, brought the seed and started to grow it in Nigeria. But cocaine, it is alien to our people. So, those who used Nigeria as a transit, they just did it to make money. And this drug is so potent that it destroys people, especially intelligent people. So, the Supreme Military Council did a memo. Of course, I took the memo to the Supreme Military Council and made recommendation and the Supreme Military Council agreed.

There was no dissenting voice?
There was no dissenting in the sense that majority agreed that this thing, this cocaine, this hard drug was earning Nigeria so much bad name in the international community because Nigeria was not producing it, but Nigerians that wanted to make money didn’t mind destroying Nigerians and other youths in other countries just to make money. So, we didn’t need them. We didn’t need them.

But there were pleas by eminent Nigerians not to kill the three men involved in the trafficking?
Pleas, pleas; those that they destroyed did they listen to their pleas for them not to make hard drug available to destroy their children and their communities?

So, it is not something you look back now at 70 and say it was an error?
No, it was not an error. It was deliberate. I didn’t do it as a head of state by fiat. We followed our proper system and took it. If I was sure that the Supreme Military Council then, the majority of them decided that we shouldn’t have done so, we could have reduced it to long sentencing. But people who did that, they wanted money to build fantastic houses, maybe to have houses in Europe and invest. Now, when they found out that if they do it, they will get shot, then they will not live to enjoy at the expense of a lot of people that became mental and became harmful and detrimental to the society and so on, then they will think twice. 

PHOTO CREDIT: AD 76.COM