In the Court of Justice, both parties know the truth; it’s the judge who’s on trial – Justice JR Midha of Delhi High Court Police report on Sylvester
Humans are social beings and as we relate among ourselves there are bound to be contours. These contours can be natural or manmade mostly arising from conflicting interests and sheer misunderstandings, when not properly treated they deteriorate into mountains. Simply put; wherever two or more persons are, there abound to be frictions, sometimes sweet sometimes sour.
No facet of human interaction escapes from the troubles of discordant tunes as seen in the tower of babel for example; not the family, not the community, nor even the theoretical impersonal government anywhere in the world. More often than not, the parties involved in a dispute do not come to a peaceful resolution, you can imagine that even a little squabble between siblings or kids will require the intervention of their parents or an elder to settle the conflict.
It is because of the evitable or inevitable troubles associated with human relation that mediation necessarily becomes an integral part of our world today. From counselors, lawyers and judges, the police, therapists, clergy men, passerby and the list goes on. Sometimes issues are settled in minutes and at other times they are settled in decades or worse still, sometimes they are never settled.
How is mediation done? By listening to all parties involved and analyzing their points and statements from the purview of the law before a decision is taken. In a case where the issue at hand is not under any codified law, the mediator uses intuition, logic, experience and other means to bring about solution and justice where necessary.
The beginning and end of mediation
It has taken these many lines to come to Sylvester Oromoni’s issue just to build on a universal foundation of mediation and justice.
A young boy complains of being bullied, moments later he dies after calling the names of those who bullied him. Two things are involved; he is either telling the truth or he is lying without imagining the weight of his statement. Why will he lie? Maybe he had a grudge with one, two, three, four and five seniors, so he decides to implicate them.
With his death the main witness is gone though there were other students who attested to the fact that he was actually bullied, but as it stands their testimonies will not stand.
After the tension and gimmicks, the Lagos state commissioner of police read a report stating that after thorough investigations and tests, it was certified that Sylvester Oromoni died of natural causes as there was no evidence of poisoning, torture or bullying.
As expected, the police report on the death of Sylvester Oromoni was widely met with criticism as for many people, naïve and wise, it was clear to see that there was no normality in the death.
There has not been any public statement by the accused seniors, probably because they are minors; the public does not know what statements they have made in custody. What if they confessed to committing the said crime, though definitely not with the intention to kill since bullying happens across schools in Nigeria, after confessing to the crime, their sympathizing ‘superiors’ decide to change the narrative through background permutations knowing the power of evidence.
If this is the case, then the accused seniors are the actual victims in this whole event, for either their conscience will be seared forever and they grow to do more harm or they will live with guilt all their lives and not be able to be at their best as individuals in society.
Today and tomorrow, mediation will continue to face the hurdles of truth and trust.
In the Court of Justice, both parties know the truth; it’s the judge who’s on trial – Justice JR Midha of Delhi High Court
