Lawyers, groups seek review of death penalty

In memory of the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty, Lawyers and civil society organizations have urged federal and state governments to review the use of the death penalty in Nigeria’s law.

The groups, the Legal Defense and Assistance Project (LEDAP) and the Human Rights Law Service (HURILAWS), called during a media discussion on the need to abolish the death penalty in Nigeria.

World Day Against the Death Penalty is celebrated every October 10th, and the 2021 edition is themed; “Women and the Death Penalty: An Invisible Reality.”

The day unites the global movement to abolish the death penalty, mobilizing civil society, political leaders, lawyers and public opinion to support the universal abolition of the death penalty.

This year’s event will focus on women who have been executed, sentenced to death or commuted, exonerated or pardoned, while highlighting the specifics and factors that make women vulnerable to alleged crimes and weigh on their convictions.

According to Death penalty project, 110 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, with Sierra Leone being the last country to abolish it despite no executions since 1998.

54 countries, including Nigeria, are still maintaining the death penalty, with eight countries allowing the death penalty only for very serious crimes and 32 countries still have the death penalty but have not used it in the past 10 years.

Corresponding Amnesty International, 1,477 death sentences were passed in 54 countries, a 36% reduction in 2020 from the 2,307 sentences recorded in 2019.

“At the end of 2020, at least 28,567 people were sentenced to death. The following methods of execution were used worldwide in 2020: decapitation, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and shooting, ”Amnesty International said.

Death penalty in Nigeria

Nigeria is one of the countries that includes the death penalty as the death penalty in its criminal code, with judges in the Supreme Courts and Sharia Courts sentencing those sentenced to death.

In August 2020, a higher Sharia court in the Hausawa Filin hockey area, Kano state, sentenced a musician, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, 22, to death by hanging for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad.

In a recent statement from Nigeria
Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola, 3008 convicts wait in the prisons for their date with the executioners. That number includes 2,952 men and 56 women.

Mr Aregbesola, who urged state governors to sign the death sentences of 3,008 people convicted, said it was a way to unburden prisons, speed up the justice wheel, and curb legal errors for people serving longer sentences than convicted.

However, this appeal has been publicly condemned by civil society, lawyers and international organizations including Amnesty International.

Despite calls to the signature of death sentences for those on death row, the last execution in Nigeria took place on December 23

, 2016, with three death row prisoners in Benin Prison, Edo State.

Their executions came after years of self-imposed “moratorium” on death sentences in Nigeria.

calls for a review of the death penalty

LEDAP and HURILAWS issued a joint statement calling for a review of the use of the death penalty in Nigeria pending a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system in order to encourage convictions to be passed without reasonable doubt.

In commemoration of this year’s event, the groups called on the Nigerian government to campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in Nigeria as it was in no way intended to deter the crimes for which it was imposed.

Talk about this year’s topic; “Women and the Death Penalty; an invisible reality, ”the groups said that gender discrimination combined with other factors such as age, sexual orientation, disability, religion and culture exposes women to structural inequalities and such prejudices can weigh heavily on their judgment.

“This discrimination can also lead to inadequate account of critical mitigating factors during arrest and trial, including the specific vulnerability of women and likely patterns of abuse and gender-based violence that may have triggered them.

“As we strive for the complete abolition of the death penalty worldwide for all crimes and for all genders, it is vital to warn about discrimination against women in Nigeria and the impact of such discrimination on women who are in our criminal justice system with the law Are in conflict. ”“ Said the groups.

In response to Mr Aregbesola’s call in July 2021 for the signing of arrest warrants for death row inmates in states across Nigeria, the groups said Nigeria should focus on reducing the 74% of trial inmates waiting in correctional facilities rather than promising death row inmates as a decongestion measure execute measure.

LEDAP announced that it has filed a lawsuit on behalf of all death row inmates in Nigeria with Federal High, Abuja, Case number FHC / ABJ / CS / 1169/2020 Nnenna Obi & Godwin Pius against Comptroller General of Prisons & 36 Governors, pending one Declares that the death penalty violates the human person’s right to dignity and requests an injunction against the General Comptroller of Prisons and the 36 governors of Nigeria to execute death row inmates.

The groups called on the federal and state governments to announce an official moratorium on all executions in Nigeria until all shortcomings in the criminal justice system are addressed, and to amend laws that provide for the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment or years’ imprisonment.

Speaking to PREMIUM TIMES, Abdul Mahmud, a lawyer, social critic, columnist and human rights activist said there was a need to review and ultimately abolish the use of the death penalty in Nigeria.

Mr Mahmud said the available data on the death penalty do not clearly show whether this form of death penalty serves as a relapse or a deterrent.

“With the rates of violent crime soaring, which often lead to violent deaths, the usefulness of the death penalty is being challenged in our criminal laws and called for its abolition.

“If the death penalty has not provided a useful deterrent, why is it still maintained as part of our laws? Beyond data, there are, in a sense, ramifications for individual violent acts leading to death; but a long term imprisonment as life imprisonment is just as much a punishment for taking someone else’s life, ”he said.

The lawyer said the governors’ refusal to sign death sentences for execution means that prisoners on death row may have to wait until the natural end of their lives in appalling conditions. He said this raises the question of whether long prison terms are not enough to punish a crime, and whether state governors’ refusal to sign death sentences for prisoners on death row, under appalling conditions, does not constitute an abuse of their right to dignity.

“One can technically argue that the long prison terms are used as punishment; but would our court be liberal with regard to the Supreme Court decision in Onuoha Kalu v. the state? ”he said.

Another lawyer, Orji Ama, said the right to life is fundamental and that when people take other people’s lives, justice must be done to the victim, the suspect and society.

“The death penalty, why does it exist? Laws are actually made to deter criminals from committing crimes. But you have to wonder if this law actually compels people not to commit crimes?

“Abolishing the death penalty is kind of complicated, some states still uphold the death penalty for specific offenses. I still think that Nigeria should keep the death penalty for special offenses but should be given under extreme circumstances and measures, ”said Mr. Ama.

Mr Ama said he does not support the full abolition of the death penalty and that the death penalty should only be revised and maintained for extreme crimes.

The lawyer said that while crimes like armed robbery can be punished with various sentences like life imprisonment, however, a crime like terrorism should not be overlooked.

“But again, our governors are not currently signing death sentences, if you go to jail a lot of people are still in line. The governors are even afraid to sign death sentences

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