My First Week of Freedom After 10 Years On Death Row

When I called my mother from prison to tell her I’d been
pardoned after 10 years in jail, she fainted.
I was told they had to pour water on her to revive her. Later,
when she saw me for the first time after all those years in
jail, she grabbed me and held me so tight. She wouldn’t let
go for almost 15 minutes. The whole time she had tears of
joy streaming from her eyes.
Football and juice: celebrating with my death row friends
I was also overwhelmed with joy when I found out about my
pardon, at 4pm on 28 May. Initially I couldn’t even speak, I
was so happy.
The day after hearing the news, I celebrated in prison by
organising a football match between death row inmates and
other prison inmates. I’d been the death row team football
coach during my time in prison. We won the match 3-0!
Everyone was so happy to play.
That Sunday I went to the prison church. I bought some
biscuits and fruit juice to share with other inmates in church
and an announcement was made that I was being released.
Everyone was happy. I had friends in prison; I had been
teaching English and Maths to fellow inmates and those
students who were keen became my friends.
I was released a few days later. That first evening at home,
my mother prepared a special dish – Okro soup with beef.
The whole family ate together at the dining table.
Afterwards, there was a party with family friends and we
sang songs, played music and prayed.
We prayed for all the activists who campaigned for my
release, those from Amnesty international and Justine
Ijeomah [the Director of HURSDEF, Nigeria’s Human Rights
Social Development and Environmental Foundation] and his
wife, Goodness Justine. Drinks were shared around with
everyone at the party.
The sleep of the free
The first night I slept in my new bed, I slept so well. What
struck me most was that at 5am, I did not hear the prison
wake-up bell. I waited for it, and then realised that it was
not a dream, but in fact I really am free.
When I realised that, I felt freedom deep in my spirit. Things
had changed for good. I went back to sleep and slept until
10am, fully enjoying my ‘freedom sleep’. My family came to
wake me up but I told them to let me sleep longer. It was
such a good sleep.
In those first days of freedom I bumped into an old school
friend and he looked at me like he’d seen a ghost.
We have a local belief that if you pour sand on a spirit it will
vanish, and he started to pick up sand from the ground and
pour it on my body! I told him – ‘don’t pour sand on me, I’m
alive, I’m not a ghost!’ At that, he touched me and hugged
me: he thought I had been executed.
He told me he would never forget the last time he saw me
before my arrest 10 years ago.
At home, everything felt strange to me, even though I’m so
relieved to be free. Lots of things have changed in the 10
years since I was arrested: new bridges have been built and
the use of laptop computers and phones is common now.
People keep asking me ‘What happened to your finger?
[After I was arrested] my fingernails and toenails were
pulled out. The scars people see are the lasting marks that
torture has left me with. When I wear sandals, seeing my
toes reminds me of what I went through.
Torture affects people in so many ways. It’s inhuman:
heating cutlasses on a fire and then flogging a person’s
back is barbaric. It affects people mentally: it causes
madness. They pass out because of the pain and admit to
things they never did.
What I went through – the torture and being on death row –
affected me in so many ways. It affected my plans for life
and my ambitions at school. I spent ten years in jail. By now
I could have finished school and have started working.
What struck me most is that you can live in a country where
you can face so much tragedy for no reason, and yet still
have to live there. I will always pray for change in Nigeria,
but I advise others living here to be very careful, so that they
will not fall victim to what I went through.
I’m joining the fight against torture
My plans now I’m free are to continue my education and get
as far as I always dreamt – I want to be a doctor to fulfill
my late father’s wishes.
But I’ll also be a human rights activist and help others who
face the same challenges that I did. I have already filled out
an application form and had a passport photo taken – the
requirements for becoming a volunteer activist with
HURSDEF.
The Director, Justine, welcomed me warmly as ‘Comrade
Moses Akatugba’. I told him: Justine, I’m joining the fight
against torture so that others will not go through the pain
that I did.
If I have my way, and can stop torture, I will be the happiest
man on earth. I don’t want any future generation to go
through what I went through in that torture chamber.
Moses Akatugba was tortured to confess to a crime he says
he never committed. His ‘confession’ was then used to
sentence him to death.
On 28 May 2015, Moses was pardoned after nearly 10 years
in jail. Over 800,000 of you around the world took action
demanding justice
Moses Akatugba was tortured to confess to a crime he says he
never committed. His ‘confession’ was then used to sentence
him to death.
On 28 May 2015, Moses was pardoned after nearly 10 years in
jail. Over 800,000 of you around the world took action
demanding justice

Failing: The Last Law School Taboo

Law students spend a great deal of time in discussion with
one another. Be it the elements of a contract, judicial
activism or even something as banal as where to get the
best and cheapest coffee on campus. The one thing we
don’t seem to talk about is failing. It’s like we are scared of
some Macbeth style jinx if any of us dares utter the word.
Let’s face it, sometimes clever, educated, hard working
students will fail a subject. It happens. It is emotionally and
mentally crushing when it does but, trust me on this; it is
not the end of your legal career or the world. You need to
take some time to reflect, feel downright melancholy and
then, dust yourself off and get on with the next semester.
Speak with your lecturers and tutors. Get some feedback
about where you could have improved and why you got the
mark you did. At the very least, something positive will
come from it, in that you will get a much better insight into
what they want to hear from you next time .
To perk you all up for next semester, I have collated a list of
brilliant minds that have at some stage failed a subject or
two.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
failed the Washington DC Bar Exam in the 1970’s.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke from experience
when he uttered “Never give in, never give in, never, never,
never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty –
never give in except to convictions of honour and good
sense. Never, never, never, never give up” as he too has felt
the cruel sting of failure, after flunking grade six.
Louis Pasteur ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry
– a fairly ordinary mark, for a fairly extraordinary mind.
Albert Einstein, a brilliant thinker and mathematician whose
face adorns many a student’s wall, failed the entrance exam
to Zurich Polytechnic School.
Leo Tolstoy completely failed his university studies and was
described as “unwilling and unable to learn”. I wonder how
many descendants of his former teachers had to read his
works as part of their studies?
On a more personal note, I know a brilliant legal mind who
currently presides on one of Victoria’s esteemed County
Court benches, who made me smile one morning by saying,
“Oh don’t worry so much about your marks at uni, I failed
two subjects in my first year”. That little conversation has
kept me going in my darkest days.
So I say to you, down with the taboo. Let’s get it out there
in the open. A spider in the dark is much more frightening
than the one you can see and measure (and squish). My
name is Jennifer, and I too, have failed a subject at law
school.
Good luck with this semester. I’ll get back to my con law
reading.