Kogi, Niger, Nasarawa residents urge govs to sign death warrants

Some residents of Kogi, Niger and Nasarawa States have called on their state governors to sign death warrants of prisoners on death row.

This is in the interest of justice and decongestion of Correctional Service Centres, they explained.

Making the appeal in separate interviews, the residents also called for outright abolishment or fine tuning of the law to address its attendant challenges and threats.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the residents responded to the agency’s survey on reasons for the governor’s negative attitude on the death warrants.

The respondents called for outright stripping of the governors of such power provided in the constitution.

Section 212(1), 33(1) and (161) of the 1999 Constitution granted governors the power to exercise mercy and pardon offenders, including signing of death warrants.

Mr Taiye Alabi, a Kogi based lawyer, said most governors do not want to be the cause of death of any person, and have deliberately refused to sign any death warrant before them.

“Looking at the challenges their (governors’) refusal to sign death warrants have constitute to justice system and the correction centres; they should be left out of it through constitutional amendment.

“In as much as there is no need for abolishing the laws on the death penalty, the signing by governors should be cancelled.

“Once an accused is tried and all evidences show and prove that the person is guilty and sentenced to death, he or she should immediately be killed without delay by any governor needing to sign to determine his or her fate,” Alabi said.

In his contribution, Mr Adegboyega Kolade, a legal practitioner, said he supported the death penalty law simply because people unfortunately play politics with everything in Nigeria.

Kolade flayed calls for abolition of the death penalty, moreso that the Holy Books say he who kills by the sword must surely die by the sword.

“This is related to the Mosaic law, which they call an eye for an eye. But a person who took another person’s life, which we all know is sacred, what should be the consequence of his action.

“Infact, it’s for the default of the governors that criminal minded people get encouraged to commit heinous crimes, knowing that they would get pardoned one day.

“As a legal practitioner with 35 years experience, I have several such personal experiences. It encourages more assassinations, wanton killings, ritual killings, banditry, Boko Haram, armed robbery, among others.

“This is what has led to the high level of insecurity that we see today in Nigeria,” Kolade asserted.

Mr Hamza Lawal, the Executive Director, Initiative for Grassroot Advancement in Nigeria (INGRA), said many governors since 2016 have refused to sign death warrants for inmates on the death row largely due to the slow process of appeals on those cases.

Lawal, a human rights activist, said: “We all know that an accused or convict has the right to appeal his or her conviction or judgement”.

He noted that such process took time because of huge backlog of cases due to the limited capacity of courts and judges in the country.

“I don’t think death penalty should be abolished because certain crimes deserve the death penalty, especially intentional murder and reasonable offences.

“One challenge that is already surfacing due to the refusal by governors to sign death warrants is the over congestion of our correctional institutions.

”From what I learnt, over 3,000 death row inmates are still in custody, and this is draining the resources of the correctional service and the nation,” he said.

Also, Mr Idris Miliki, the Executive Director, Conscience for Human Rights and Conflicts Resolutions (CHRCR), expressed displeasure with the death penalty in the country, saying it should be abolished.

Miliki declared that some people like him were against the death penalty in operation in the country, insisting that it must be abolished.

He noted that in spite of the killing of armed robbers from time in memorial, it has not stopped the robbery cases in Nigeria.

“The fundamental question is, can death of perpetrators compensate for the lives of victims? We say no to death penalties,” Miliki said.

Another lawyer, Mr Adejo Isah, stressed the need to take into account the simple fact that death sentence was tantamount to singing a victory song after a civil war, stressing that it was still a dirge to the nation.

Isah, a Legal Adviser to the Petroleum, Environment and Solid Minerals Degradation Awareness Association (PESMDAA), Kogi chapter, urged the Federal Government to put up proper correctional facilities that could help change criminals’ mindsets.

According to him, a criminal who refuses to change can be sentenced to life imprisonment, where he won’t only be left idle but forcefully made to be productive to the government via learning skills, which at perfection, produce useful materials or products.

“That is what obtains in developed countries of the world instead of wasting the criminals for just no gain.

“The law on death sentence should be abolished. We know that death is sacrosanct, but adequate use must be made of every human being before his death.

“The impact of the refusal by the governors to sign death warrants is monumental on the positive side.

“It is a decision that will culminate to making Nigeria belong to one of the echelon of the developed countries of the world as it relates to her justice system.

“It makes the Nigerian justice system more pragmatic and reasonable in the eyes of the western countries, where such ideologies are maturely in place,” Isah said.