T wo weeks ago, the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, stirred the hornets’ nest. He announced, at a press conference, that the state governor, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, was on the verge of signing the death warrant of persons condemned to death in the State.
Most of these convicts had appealed their cases up to the Supreme Court but the death sentence passed on them by the lower courts was upheld. According to reports, over 202 condemned prisoners were in solitary confinement in Lagos prisons as at April 5, this year.
Kazeem explained that the governor’s resolve to dispatch the convicts through the hangman’s noose was informed by “complaints from the prisons’ authorities.”
For instance, an armed robber who did not kill while committing the crime might be considered for a life sentence, unlike one who took human lives
According to him, the condemned prisoners, because of the delay in executing them, were demanding for certain rights “which are creating tension within the prison formations in the state.”
Kazeem nonetheless disproved a possible suggestion that the state was being overzealous with the mass execution plot, apparently for the purpose of silencing the General-Overseer of a church, Christian Praying Assembly, Mr. Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, a.k.a Rev. King, who had allegedly been gallivanting that his pedigree would ultimately make the authorities commute his death sentence.
Rev. King, now on the death row, was sentenced to death for killing a female member of his church by setting fire on her. He lost his appeals up to the apex court.
The Lagos Attorney General averred that the Rev. King case was not in consideration while government resolved on its planned action, stressing that there were many inmates on the death row, whereas the government had shown restraint all the while, by not authorising any execution.
Reports added, however, that prisons’ officials had complained to the Lagos government that they were overwhelmed by prisons’ congestion, incessant jail-breaks, and paucity of funds to manage the ever-increasing inmates.
That, perhaps, now informs the decision to ‘clean up’ the prisons through mass execution of condemned criminals. That, undoubtedly, is begging the question, especially in the face of the fact that the prisons’ authorities are under the control of the Federal Government, whose duty is to manage the prisons.
Unimpressed by the latest pronouncement from the Lagos government, human rights lawyer and senior advocate, Mr. Femi Falana, said Governor Ambode should re-consider his stance, even as he faulted the justice administration in Nigeria. Under it, he said, lesser criminals are sentenced to death, whereas, the most heinous ones are allowed to walk.
He explained it off by saying politicians who embezzle money earmarked for construction of roads, schools, hospitals, power supply and arms procurement are “the greatest killers.”
Besides, Falana noted that although many persons had been convicted for armed robbery and murder and sentenced to death by the Lagos State High Court since 1999, but that none among Ambode’s predecessors signed death warrants for the execution persons on the death row.
He also quoted a Lagos State High Court judge who stated in a case that, “death by hanging and firing squad amounts to a violation of the condemned’s right to dignity of the human person and amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment (and) is consequently unconstitutional, being a violation of section 34(1) (a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.”
However, another legal expert had since risen to counter Falana. He is Mr. A.G. GiwaAmu, who contended that the Lagos State Government had the powers to sign the death warrants once the condemned inmates have exhausted their right of appeal.
“The judgement relied upon by Falana is the judgement of the Lagos State High Court. The Supreme Court has held that these condemned persons should die by hanging. The Supreme Court’s judgement supersedes the judgement of a state High Court. We must stop interpreting laws in a manner that will cause jurisprudential confusion or jurisdictional disrespect for the Supreme Court,” Giwa-Amu averred.
But Falana’s position had long been amplified by Amnesty International, which described the death sentence as “denial of human rights”, as “it does not deter crime.”
The body stressed that “the death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading. Every day, people are executed by the state as punishment for a variety of crimes – sometimes for acts that should not be criminalised.
In some countries, it can be for who you sleep with; in others, it is reserved for acts of terror and murder.”
The triviality that Amnesty International observed in the passing of death sentence on some convicts might as well assist in resolving the dilemma which the Lagos State Government is likely to encounter, as regards the issue in contention.
While the appeal that the death verdict on the condemned criminals should be commuted to life sentence is plausible in the face of the need to give sanctity to the human life, a thorough review of circumstances of crime, can also help in determining those who deserve death and those whose sentence should be commuted.
For instance, an armed robber who did not kill while committing the crime might be considered for a life sentence, unlike one who took human lives.Thus, the severity of crime, as committed, may come as a weighing force in the eventual resolve of the Lagos government to effect the mass execution.
Above all, the Federal Government should rise up to the challenge posed by the debilitating conditions of Nigerian prisons, which have become more of jungles than reformatory centres. This has accounted for frequent deaths, chronic diseases, jail-breaks and insurrection in the prisons. A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.
