Govs reluctant to sign death warrants – Prison Service

The Nigeria Prison Service (NPS) has blamed the high number of condemned inmates in prisons across the country to unwillingness of state governors to approve executions.

Public Relations Officer of the service, Francis Enobore stated this during a parley with journalists at the weekend in Abuja.

He said 1,640 condemned persons were presently in prison formations across the country while appealing to state governors to do the needful by either signing the condemned persons death execution or commuting their death sentences to terms of imprisonment.

“The problem of condemned prisoners is still a very big challenged to NPS and we have been appealing to the relevant authorities especially to chief executives.

“When someone gets to his last bus stop and is condemned to death and he has exhausted his appeal to the Supreme Court, the only opportunity he has to escape the death is the chief executive commuting his death sentence to a term of imprisonment or sign the death warrant for this person to take his last breath.

“But there is a kind of silent moratorium that most governors are not willing to endorse death sentences.

“You are not signing their execution, yet you are not commuting their death sentences to terms of imprisonment, so that we can get them transferred to a place where they can be remodelled or rebranded for the society.

“So they create a very big problem for us. But we keep appealing to governors to do the needful so that we will be able to really manage these people effectively,” he said.