Death penalty: Which way Nigeria? · Stakeholders disagree on the proposal for the abolition of capital punishment BY KAYODE KETEFE He stood erect in the dock in his full height dressed in his customary white three-piece suit. Sweat flowed freely from his head through his well-cultivated beard into the collar of his white shirt as he sighed with apprehension. The man in question, Pastor Emeka Ezeuko, aka Rev King, listened with rapt attention as the trial judge, Justice Joseph Olubunmi Kayode Oyewole, read the judgment in the open court. A few months before, King had been charged before the high court for killing a female member of his church, Ann Uzor. This was to be the judgment day! The premises of the court was filled with members of his church who had come in solidarity with their pastor, hoping against hope that the court would pronounce him not guilty of the offences. But at the end, Justice Oyewole's decision shattered their hope. "The judgment of this court upon you is that you should be hanged on your neck till you be dead, May God have mercy upon your soul", said the judge as he concluded reading his lenghty judgment. Rev King is just one of the more than 4000 convicted inmates allegedly languishing in various condemned cells across prisons in the Federation. Other well-known figures recently sentenced to death include the former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, Major Al Mustapha and his coconvict, Lateef Sofolahan, who was an aide to Chief Abiola's wife, late Mrs. Kudirat Abiola. While some, like King, still pursue their appeal before appellate courts, others appeals have been concluded, while the convicts wait endlessly for the hangman's noose. Yet, statistics shows that virtually all governors in Nigeria since 1999 have refrained from signing the death warrants that will terminate the lives of the convicts. Now, should death penalty be abolished in Nigeria? This question was recently thrown into public discourse as a result of comments made on it by two prominent Nigerian jurists, the out-going Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Dahiru Musdapher and the Attorney- General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello-Adoke SAN. The two made known their respective stance on the controversial issue in Abuja at a recent one-day programme organised by an Non Governmental Organisation, Avocats Sans Frontiers, (Lawyers without Borders) a France-based group that has been in the vanguard of international agitation for abolition of the death penalty in all the nations where they are still extant, including Nigeria. The CJN had disagreed with the agitations of the proponents of abolition of the death penalty, stressing that since it is part of the Nigerian law, it should be retained. The AGF, on its part, took a middle court, saying he could not say whether it is good or bad. The CJN said "it is not the responsibility of the Judiciary to abolish death sentence in Nigerian laws, but the work of the Legislature. The constitution specifically provides for death penalty. "In addition, the Supreme Court has, in a plethora of cases, upheld the constitutionality of death sentence in Nigeria. Indeed, in a constitutional democracy, neither the legislature nor the judiciary is supreme. "Only the constitution is supreme. When a constitution is adopted, the legislature is obliged to uphold its provisions. The task of the court is to protect the provisions of the constitution and ensure that the legislature fulfills its obligation." The AGF said: "Death penalty is a constitutional matter. Therefore, we cannot say it is right or wrong. We look forward to receiving the report of this conference with a view that it will help reshape our criminal justice system. I have already put a justice reform committee in place, and the result of this conference will be of great assistance to us." In response to the above differing positions of the two prominent jurists, the NBA President, Joseph Bodunrin Daudu, SAN, said that the call for the abolition of death penalty is premature, adding that what is needed is institutional advocacy on issues of criminal justice system in Nigeria. Daudu said "NBA has taken a stance on this issue of death penalty. At our NBA NEC meeting in Gombe, two issues were discussed; one of the issues was death penalty and that of same-sex marriage and our stance on death penalty was that it is premature. But we condemned same-sex marriage and called for any legislation that will forbid it. "What is important is whether our justice system, particularly criminal justice, is mature enough to abolish death penalty. " The rationale for death penalty in Nigeria is enshrined in Section 33 (1) of the 1999 Constitution which provides. (1) Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria. (2) A person shall not be regarded as having been deprived of his life in contravention of this section, if he dies as a result of the use, to such extent and in such circumstances as are permitted by law, of such force as is reasonably necessary - (a) For the defence of any person from unlawful violence or for the defence of property: (b) In order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained; or (c) For the purpose of suppressing a riot, insurrection or mutiny." Employment of death penalty as punitive measures dated back to time immemorial as many ancient societies widely engaged in the practice using various methods, including horrible ones to carry out the execution. The methods of killing in various societies across the world in the olden days include throwing the condemned persons to the den of hungry lions to be devoured; crushing with stone, throwing off the condemned from edge of cliffs, burning alive, beheading with cutlass, hanging, using horse or other wild animals to drag the condemned on the ground till they died or nailing to the convict to the cross until the person died! In these modern times, the methods used are mainly hanging on the neck, electrocution through electric chair and injection with lethal drug. The method of killing stipulated under the Nigerian law is hanging by the neck while the formula for pronouncing death sentence in the Nigerian courts is through the scary sentence - "The judgment of this court upon you is that you should be hanged on your neck till you are dead, May God has mercy upon your soul" The crimes that fetch capital punishment in Nigeria today include armed robbery, murder and treason. A lot of adjudged criminals on which this sentence has been placed have, for many decades, been killed in Nigeria. However, since 2004, death penalty has not been enforced in Nigeria as the President and the governors have not been signing death warrants of condemned criminals, thus it would appear as if a kind of informal moratorium has been enforced in Nigeria. At the global level, 97 countries have abolished death penalty from their statutes, while 58 nations (including Nigeria) practice it. About ten countries (also including Nigeria) have not carried out execution of condemned persons in the past 10 years. It is also interesting to note that a state in the United States of America, California, has announced the initiative to put death sentence to vote in a general election slated for November. If approved by voters, the state would commute all death sentences to life imprisonment without parole. In the United States as whole, 17 states have repealed death penalty while 34 states still retain it. Five states have repealed it within the past five years. The states are Connecticut, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Illinois. The top 20 countries in the world with the highest execution rate are, China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, United States, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Bangladesh, Somalia, Sudan, Palestinian, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Taiwan, Belarus, Japan, Iraq, Malaysia and Bahrain. It is remarkable that this list included five African countries. It is also worthy of note that Iran has the highest rate of execution of juvenile offenders in spite of being a signatory to the Convention on Child Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit the execution of children. Apart from Avocats Sans Frontiers, other international organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch etc have been in forefront of the sustained campaign for the abolition of capital punishment worldwide. At the local level, NGOs like Human Rights Law (HURILAWS) and Access to Justice of Mr. Olisa Agbakoba and Joseph Chu'ma Otteh respectively have made significant contributions towards replacing death penalty with less stiff punitive measures in Nigeria. Agbakoba and Obiora Obeagu in their booklet entitled "Death penalty: Towards a moratorium in Nigeria," had this to say on death penalty. "The vulnerability of all criminal justice system to discrimination and error must be acknowledged. Human factors such as expediency, the exercise of discretion and the influence of public opinion can affect each stage of legal proceedings from indictment through trial and sentencing to punishment and the possible granting of clemency. Who lives and who dies may ultimately is determined by factors not directly related to guilt or innocence. A defence lawyer's lack of access may lead to execution" This writer also sought the views of some senior lawyers on this controversial issue. A senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Okey Wali, said this "Some believe that people who have taken the lives of other people should pay with their own lives while others believe that the world has moved on from a stage when every evil has to be recompensed with evil. But it is noteworthy that some people, due to a combination of factors, may be convicted when they are not guilty. "In the developed lands where medical science has grown, you can find out that the use of forensic method like the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) test has come on and there have been occasions when those who had been convicted a long time ago have been found out to have been innocent of the crime. That is the reason for the reluctance in support of capital punishment because it is a final sentence. "Agreed that the first instinct should be that he that killed should be killed, but if you appreciate the fact that sometimes some people get wrongly convicted, then you would be more reluctant in advocating for capital punishment. There is no reversal of death penalty once carried out, it is final! Also sharing the same thought, a former Second National Vice Chairman of the NBA, Mr. Adekunle Ojo said "I would rather pitch my tent with those agitating for the abolition of death penalty. I believe as a Christian, that no man has the right to terminate the life of another under whatever guise. "The criminal does not have the right to take anybody's life, but neither does the state. Even quite often, a lot of lives have been terminated in error. For example, if somebody finds himself where he is not supposed to find himself and the real culprits have escaped, the innocent person would be arrested in error and, most often, the innocent person pays the supreme sacrifice for what he knows nothing about. "Secondly, death penalty for armed robbery, murder, kidnapping etc has not reduced the incidence of all these grave vices, rather, the frequency of these offences keep increasing. "You can see that in the very environment where somebody is being executed for robbery, you would see another person stealing! That shows that killing does not stop the vices. What we need to think of is the corrective and reformative penalties rather than death penalty." However, a Port Harcourt-based lawyer, Mr. Edwin Onah disagreed with this position while insisting that the severest penalty of death should be retained in the nation's penal system. Onah said "Death penalty is okay if it reserved for the capital offences. It is wrong for some governors to refuse to sign death warrant on the grounds that they don't want to have blood of the condemned criminals on their hands. "People should be made to face the consequences of their actions. There are many instances where serial killers would be caught and they would start pleading for their lives. Every life is sacred; you can't take other people's lives and be reluctant to pay the price with your own." Also speaking in opposition to the recommended abolition of the capital punishment in Nigeria, a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Wole Olutoni, said, "Even in the law of God, there is death penalty. Are we human beings trying to be nicer than God by abolishing death penalty? It is part of our law in Nigeria and I see no reason why it should not be invoked in deserving cases. What I would not support is to be killing people for offences that ought not to be capital offences like drug carriage, homosexuality etc." |
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment