No more justification for death sentence in Nigeria – Group

This, according to HURILAWS, which is being spearheaded by a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), is because state governors, who have the power to sign the death warrants for death row inmates, are shying away from such responsibility. The group, quoting Amnesty International, said there were no fewer than 2,285 death row inmates languishing in different prisons across the country, noting that in 2017 alone, a total of 621 persons were sentenced to death by the courts with no governor willing to sign their death warrants. In a statement on Wednesday by its Senior Legal/Programme Officer, Collins Okeke, in commemoration of this year’s World Day against the Death Penalty, HURILAWS urged Nigerian judges to support the advocacy for the abolishment of death penalty by, in protest, stopping to sentence convicts to death. It noted that though death row inmates were entitled to the protection of their human rights, in Nigerian prisons they were being kept under dehumanising conditions. The group said, “In practice, since May 29, 1999, most state governors have failed, refused or neglected to sign warrant of execution. The result is that death sentences are handed down by the courts and are not carried out. “For many of these death row prisoners, conditions are traumatic, harsh and dehumanising. “Most death row cells are 7 by 8 feet, shared by three to five people; the cells are dark and are with hardly any ventilation. Prisoners use buckets as toilets and sleep on the bare floor. “The average period spent on death row by prison inmates in Nigeria is between 10-15 years. Many death row prisoners have developed mental illness during their long stay in prison and on death row. “HURILAWS is of the view that since the death sentence passed on convicts are never carried out and will never be carried out, there is no more constitutional justification for the sentence of death. “The punishment of death is protected under Section 33 (1) CFRN 1999 ‘ in the execution of the sentence of a court’ and when those who should sign death warrants are unwilling to, it becomes clear that the sentence of death is unconstitutional since Section 33 (1) covers execution not sentencing in vain keeping the convicts on the death row indefinitely. “HURILAWS, therefore, calls on judges in Nigeria to employ activism to declare this practice unconstitutional. “HURILAWS also calls on the federal and state governments in Nigeria to stop torturing and traumatising death row inmates by either abolishing the death penalty or signing into law a death penalty moratorium law.”]]>