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Parents Await Jury Verdict
FOR the second time since his brutal murder on November 27, 2000, a verdict is being awaited in the celebrated trial of Damilola Taylor's alleged attackers in London, United Kingdom.
In 2002, four youths, including two 16-year-old brothers, went on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of Damilola, a 10-year-old Nigerian boy.
The trial led to all four suspects being acquitted. Two were discharged on the direction of the judge after he ruled that the prosecution's key witness, a 12-year-old girl, was unreliable; the jury found the other two not guilty.
Despite the setback, police vowed to keep the investigation open. New DNA techniques led to a re-examination of the evidence obtained at the time of the murder.
In 2005, fresh arrests were made. The arrested were "Hassan Jihad, 19 and two brothers aged 17 and 16, who could not be named due to their age."
On January 23, 2006, Hassan Jihad (now 20-years-old), and the two brothers (aged 17 and 18). appeared at the Old Bailey to face charges of Damilola's murder, manslaughter and assault with intent to rob before the start of their imminent trial.
The trial, which commenced on January 24, 2006, has ended on March 29, 2006 and the jury has retired to consider its verdict.
The gruesome death of Damilola Taylor has been the subject of intense attention and comment by the global media in the past two weeks.
It is easy to see why. Damilola's tender age and the circumstances in which he died have stirred deep emotions in people all over the world.
On his way back from the computer club, the youth was attacked by unknown persons who stabbed him in the left leg, possibly with a broken bottle. The injury proved to be a fatal one: a major artery was cut off.
Mortally wounded and bleeding, the boy, still in his school uniform, put up a brave fight for life, as he struggled desperately to reach home. But it was a vain effort.
Leaving a 100-metre trail of blood behind him, he collapsed in a stairwell where he gave up the ghost.
Nigerians in particular and the world in general had responded with indignation and shock to Damilola's premature end. The revelation that the boy's mother had been to the son's Oliver Goldsmith Primary School in North Peckham, to complain about the bullying, predictably fuelled the anger.
Mrs. Taylor had actually sent a desperate message to her husband, Richard in Nigeria, asking him to come over to Britain to do something about the constant reports of bullying she was getting from Damilola.
Even though the school authorities sought to play down on the bullying incident, there is strong reason to believe that the failure to take decisive action may have contributed to his death.
Bullying is a common practice, but in Britain where it has virtually become institutionalised in public schools, it has assumed the status of a venerable rite of passage.
But it is no less reprehensible because even when the child survives the ordeal, it often leaves deep scars in his psyche.
The pervasive incidence of bullying in schools is an apt metaphor for the spiral of crime and senseless violence perpetrated by youths in Britain and other parts of the Western world.
This phenomenon can be traced to the crises of post-industrial societies in which perversion and spiritual decay have become the norm.
In the absence of strong communal and ethical values, youths are left rudderless in a society notorious for self-centred individualism.
In degraded neighbourhoods like Peckham where Damilola died, these negative features are even more prevalent. Drugs and arms are common, opportunities are scarce and unemployment is high. It was in this cauldron of social and economic discontent that Damilola met his end.
His death is, therefore, a warning to Nigerians, who are obsessed with leaving home for so-called better climes that the streets of London, Berlin, New York or Milan are not paved with gold.
This pathetic story reveals that Nigerians face all manners of hazards - racial violence, unemployment and dehumanisation. Thousands of Nigerians are languishing in jails abroad. Many have been murdered.
Citizenship of another country is no longer a guarantee for the good things of life. Many enterprising Nigerians, compelled by economic distress to seek refuge abroad, engage in degrading activities to survive.
No doubt, there are many problems and frustrating inconveniences, which make life a misery in Britain. But dangers are also lying in wait for the unsuspecting Nigerian abroad; the dream can go tragically awry as has happened in the case of the Taylors.
The urgency with which the British government responded to the murder of Damilola is exemplary. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Home Secretary, Jack Straw were quick in expressing the outrage of their government and in announcing their determination to see that the killers were brought to book, Straw also visited Damilola's school.
The police have embarked on a comprehensive investigation, spreading their net to catch and interrogate all possible suspects and witnesses in the Peckham community, Damilola's school, his friends and other possible clues. More than 60 officers are working on the case.
The determination of government and law enforcement agencies to crack the case is self-evident, as all the modern devices and strategies are being employed.
The Nigerian government and Police have useful lessons to learn from all this. Too many cases of robbery and assassination are unsolved in our society.
Although the constraints under which the police here work cannot be denied, there is little to show that available resources are being harnessed to fight crime.
The message in Damilola's death, tragic as it is, is that to the British government, the life of every resident and citizen, however new or poor, matters. It should be so in Nigeria, too.
The reaction of the Nigerian government to the death of an athlete in Sydney last September does not show that it values its citizens so that the constant appeals to patriotism will have more meaning and impact.
Through the High Commission in London, Nigeria should monitor the case and extend every assistance to the Taylors, to ensure that they get justice and appropriate compensation at the end of the investigations.
The case, into its second trial, and for which the jury had retired on March 29, 2006, to consider its verdict, has implications for Nigeria-Britain relations.
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