LAW Experts divided over 2,194 death row prison inmates
The 2,194 death row inmates in Nigerian prisons as at November 2017, has attracted divided opinions from lawyers and other criminal justice analysts.
In the Nigerian prison with about 70 per cent of the about 74,000 inmates awaiting trial, the number of death row inmates is about four per cent of the prison population.
There is the suggestion that the number is rising because state governors are not signing the execution orders, or commuting the sentences through the prerogative of mercy. Yet there is the view that the country’s criminal justice system is skewed against the poor members of society.
Analysts are quick to point at the case of Emeka Ezeugo, alias Reverend King, as one of the few prominent citizens to be handed the death sentence. While others point to the application of the law vis-a-vis the gravity of the offence as the major factor responsible for the increasing number of death row inmates.
The Nigerian criminal law recognizes capital punishment for offences of murder, treason, treachery, and armed robbery, while some states have enacted capital punishment for kidnapping. Section 221 of the Penal Code and Section 319 of the Criminal Code provide capital punishment for murder, while sections 37 and 38 of the Criminal Code prescribe punishment by death for treasonable felony.
During the 15th World Day Against Torture recently, the Avocats Sans Frontiere France (ASFF) otherwise known as Lawyers Without Borders, said its records showed that most individuals “on death penalty row are from disadvantaged groups.”
ASFF’s Angela Uwandu, who spoke on the theme, ‘Death Penalty and Poverty’ in Abuja, noted that poor offenders cannot hire the services of experienced lawyers to defend them in court, thereby denying them their right of defence.
“Although the right for appeal in death penalty cases is fundamental according to the Nigerian constitution, most persons who have been sentenced to death are unable to challenge their convictions on appeal due to the exorbitant costs of appeals at both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court systems,” she said.
“The death penalty is discriminatory and is used disproportionately against the poor. Legislations prescribing the death penalty will ultimately put the economically disadvantaged population at higher risk of death penalty. The death penalty is not a deterrent and is not a solution for crimes like kidnapping, as is wrongly assumed by several state legislatures,” Uwandu averred.
In the same vein, the Executive Director, Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE), Sylvester Uhaa, expressed worry over the preponderance of persons of poor background who could not afford good legal representation in the death row inmates. He also faulted politicians who believe the death penalty is a solution to crime.
“The argument that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime is flawed because studies in many jurisdictions show it does not. The death sentence is an emotional response to crime, an act of vengeance and retribution,” he said.
“But in actual sense they are not because they fail to address the root causes of violent crimes in our society. More so a fundamentally and deeply flawed criminal justice system in Nigeria which lacks the basic elements of justice cannot demand the death penalty, as this would lead to the killing of innocent people,” he added.
But the second vice president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Onyekachi Ubani, said the death penalty remains part of the Nigerian law even though most state governors have shied away from giving effect to the law. He explained that if the country wishes to remove capital punishment, that can only be done through the National Assembly.
“I am in favour of obeying what the law says. If the law says execute, you execute. For now, that is the law, so the governors must carry out all that is required for the amendment of the law in order to escape carrying out that responsibility,” Ubani said.
He also agreed that the criminal justice system in Nigeria is skewed against the poor who have no money to hire good lawyers, explaining that they don’t get the best from the pro bono services provided by some lawyers.
Also, human rights lawyer, Hameed Ajibola Jimoh, said where the judge has decided on the law, he becomes ‘functus officio’ and only the state can now confirm that sentence.
“As our Administration of Criminal Justice System is, anyone found guilty should be dealt with according to the laws of the land and that is the core principles of rule of law,” he said.
On the argument that death row inmates are mainly poor persons, Jimoh said being guilty of crime is a matter of social status, stressing that “even the society will not be secure if some of those genuinely guilty persons are released to the society. Definitely, poor persons without moral upbringing are more prone to committing crimes than the rich.”
For its part, the Nigerian Prisons Service, through its spokesman, Francis Enabore, said it is focused on providing safe and human custody to the inmates.
“It is the prerogative of state chief executives to either sign execution warrants or commute the sentences to terms of imprisonment for those that have exhausted their appeals,” he said.