…Gets $250,000 as compensation
From Henry Chukwurah, Abuja
After more than two years’ legal battle, justice has come the way of the General Manager (Finance) of The Sun Publishing Limited, Mr. Obioma Ogukwe, as the ECOWAS Court sitting in Abuja, ordered the Ghanaian government to pay $250,000 as compensation to his family over the death of their 15-year-old son, Augustine Chukwuebuka, in that country about three years ago. Chukwuebuka was a student in Ghana when he died while swimming on October 15, 2013.
Delivering judgment in a suit filed by the senior Ogukwe, the sub-regional court stated that the compensation was for the failure of the Ghanaian police to carry out proper investigation into the death of the student, thereby failing in its duty to protect and defend all persons within its territory. In the suit, No. ECW/CCJ/APP/03/14, filed on February 20, 2014, the father of the deceased had alleged that the Ghana police hospital gave him the report of an autopsy conducted without his consent or knowledge, which revealed that the basic cause of his son’s death was drowning while the direct cause was asphyxia by submersion.
Led in evidence by his counsel, Femi Adedeji, the plaintiff had also told the court that contrary to the autopsy report, there was evidence of torture on the body and that the wounds on the boy’s face and sides were proofs of beating, torture and gruesome murder. Ogukwe had also deposed that the government of Ghana neither took steps to investigate the matter nor set up a coroner’s inquest to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of the student and prosecute any person found culpable in violation of the country’s obligations under international human rights instruments.
Consequently, his lawyer had submitted that the right to life of the plaintiff’s son had been violated by the Ghanaian State. But counsel to the defendant, Dorothy Afriyie Ansah, had countered, submitting that, “given the peculiar circumstances of the death of Master Austine Ogukwe, where no finger prints could be taken, nobody saw how it happened and the tip off was from an unknown informant, no arrest could have been effected.”
She refuted the claims that the State failed or refused to investigate the matter and conduct a coroner’s inquest to unravel the strange occurrence, but that a report of full scale investigation had been submitted to the office of the Attorney General for advice. She then contended that the plaintiff was not entitled to his claim for compensation for a death caused by drowning and not unlawful causes.
In the judgement, the three‐member panel of the court’s judges led by Justice Micah Wilkins Wright, acknowledged that though the defendant may not be liable for acts of private institutions operating in its territory, the State has a duty to protect all persons in its territory and properly investigate or institute an inquiry and punish all acts of violence and violations committed in its territory. The judges also noted the defendant’s failure to provide evidence in support of its argument, including the documentation of the crime scene, to explain the marks on the body of the deceased, which could have been due to several factors.
The late Chukwuebuka Ogukwe until the tragedy, was a student of Ideal College, Tema, near the country’s capital, Accra. He was alleged to have died during a jogging exercise involving 45 other students, who were later involved in swimming.
The two other judges on the panel were Justices Friday Chijioke Nwoke and Alioune Sall.v