had in prison for more than 23 years. Prior to
1989, Calistus Ike had dreamt of becoming a very
successful business man. Little did he know that
he was going to spend seven years as an awaiting
trial inmate and another 16 years on the death
row.
As the first son and bread winner of his family at
that time, Ike, had all his dreams quashed after he
was sentenced to death following his refusal to
pay N200 bribe to the policeman that investigated
an allegation against him. Luck however shone on
him when through the intervention of a France-
based human right group, Avocats Sans
Frontieres, ASFF, also known as ‘Lawyers Without
Borders France’, the Edo state government,
pardoned him and approved his release from
prison in 2012.
Reliving the harrowing times he had in jail and
circumstances that led to his conviction with
Saturday Vanguard, this disconsolate erstwhile
death row inmate, insisted that he was innocent of
the allegation that left him at the mercy of the
hang-man, even as he called for a total overhaul of
the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
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