A group of non-governmental organizations has taken a collective stance against death penalty, stressing no statistics have proven that capital punishment is a deterrent to major crimes. The group composed of Sant’ Egidio Nigeria, For Cities for Life: Cities against Death Penalty and For Lifewire International Organisation said, the obsolete act grossly contradicts the individual’s right to life. They called on the Nigerian government to stop all death penalty executions forthwith. The proponents made these statements at a media conference tagged “Cities for Life: Cities against the death penalty,” a moral, inter-religious and secular campaign against capital punishment initiated by the Community of Sant’ Egido on Tuesday in Lagos. They contended that many countries have abolished capital punishment, adding that the law itself went against God’s express order: Thou shall not kill. Condemning such punitive measure, they charged the Nation- al Assembly and State Houses of Assembly to amend the Criminal Code and Penal Code as well as the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act to expunge the death sentence as punishment for crimes and replace it with life imprisonment or a term of years’ sentence. The group said, “We stand for justice in Nigeria, we therefore, call for the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes; the establishment of a moratorium on executions and amendment of criminal laws to replace death sentences with longterm imprisonment.”
“We urge the Nigerian policymakers and governments to be part of the growing worldwide movement, especially also in African countries (majority of the African Union’s Member States have actually legally abolished the death penalty or applied a de facto moratorium on capital punishment) to withdraw from capital punishment and to move towards abolition of the death penalty.” In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of persons on death row currently stands at 5,841. With 3,036 death row inmates, Nigeria represents over 52 per cent of the total number. This shows that efforts to end the death penalty in Nigeria must be reinvigorated. At the 2022 edition of World Day Against Death Penalty, Nigeria was urged by various anti-death penalty national and international groups to join the growing list of African nations who have abolished the death penalty such as Rwanda, Burundi, Togo, Gabon, Benin, Congo, Madagascar, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Sierra Leone. Observed every 10th of October, the World Day Against the Death Penalty consolidates the global movement against capital punishment and mobilises civil society, political leaders, activists, lawyers, change agents and more to support the call for universal abolition of capital punishment.
Mr. Arthur Judah Angel, President of Life Wire International Foundation at the Media Conference said every execution is a brutal act that dehumanises those who carry it out and devalues the worth that the society places on human lives. Speaking on his paper entitled “Cities for life 2022: Sorrows, tears and blood,” Mr. Angel noted that death penalty has taken the lives of a good number of people whose lives should in the alternative be spared and reformed. He said, “In country after country, death penalty is mostly used disproportionately against the poor or against racial or ethnic minorities. It is used as a tool of political repression. The exact number of people who have fallen victims of the barbaric idea cannot be ascertained so can we not ascertain the number of talented beings whose lives have been wasted. “We would be deluding ourselves if we were to believe that the execution of comparatively little few people each year will provide the solution to the unacceptable high rate of crime. I personally believe that the greatest deterrent to crime is the likelihood that offenders will be apprehended, convicted and punished. It is that which is lacking in our criminal justice system.
All too often, politicians have found the death penalty a useful tool in appearing to address crime and make the public feel safe. “In reality, the death penalty has no such effect but simply distracts from the need to address the causes of crime and providing effective remedies. “The idea behind the inclusion of punishment in the criminal justice is to serve as deterrent. But then the idea of death penalty as a form of punishment may not have come to the contemplation. Even if it did, it ought to be changed by now since most eminent scholars of jurisprudence do not believe in a law being static, any law that may not fully serve the purpose for which it is made.” Mr. Arthur Judah Angel is a human rights activist and once a death row inmate. He described death penalty as a form of punishment that is not only archaic, but crude and cruel, arbitrary and dehumanising, yet disproportionately imposed on mostly the poor and defenseless masses. Mr. Angel shared his experience, “I spent nine years and six months of my life on the death row cells of Enugu Prison in the eastern part of Nigeria and by divine intervention was rescued from the sharp claws of the gallows to stand the chance to tell the tale of dehumanising and faceless process that obtain from death row cells to the gallows. “I witnessed the death of the guilty and very many innocents through hanging, firing, lynching, poisoning, the list is endless. Every step of it spells gross abuse of human rights and is quite degrading. I personally think that it is quite illogical and unreasonable for the state to waste human life which it purports to protect. Capital punishment has never helped in any way to prevent nor curb crime.
“Most big time criminals in corrupt society like ours bribe their way out of the long arms of the law and most times the poor and less privileged are roped too with their lives for crimes not committed by them, an irony too many.” According to the ex death row inmate, there is no convincing argument that society cannot find ways other than killing to express its condemnation of crime. He further stressed that capital punishment has not worked in Nigeria where hanging and firing were carried out in the public. He said rather armed robbery has increased since the application of capital punishment to the offense; other violent crimes have scaled onto the springboard of the litany of crimes since the application of death penalty in Nigeria. Mr. Angel argued, “Death penalty, capital punishment, call it whatever is another way of the state accepting its inability to reclaim a derailed life. The only thing death penalty has added to the society since its application to the criminal justice is more sorrow, more tears, more blood. “The universal declaration of human rights and other international human rights instruments adopted since 1948 prohibits all forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment of which capital punishment is major,” he stated. Mr. Nathaniel Ngwu of Justice for Peace and Development Initiative (JPDI) posited that militarisation of policing has resulted in countless unlawful killings throughout the country, perpetrated often with complete impunity. “A flash in mind is the recent attack and killing of seven youths in Imo State, Nigeria’s South-east. “The victims were alleged to have been killed by the operatives of a government-backed security outfit, Ebubeagu in a community called Owomama in Oru East Local Government Area where they had gone to attend a marriage ceremony.
Mr. Ngwu regretted that the increasing extrajudicial killings and jungle justice have received popular acceptance on daily basis as result of failed institutional mechanisms to bring alleged offenders to justice. Delivering his paper entitled, “Justice for peace and development initiative condemn extra-judicial killings and jungle justice in Nigeria,” Mr. Ngwu said this is because the people complain that many of the suspected thieves handed over to the police are found back in the streets few days committing more crimes. He recounted three more incidents of this barbaric act. “Not only are Nigerians scared in the hands of the people that are statutorily mandated to protect them they are now being threatened by mob actions, on every minutest allegation of crime. A report has it that “a woman stripped naked cries out, says I didn’t pick snails from sacred site.” Mrs. Anthonia Ugwu, who was stripped naked by some youths in Agunese, Afam-Mmaku Agwu Local Government Area of the Enugu State has cried out over the way she was beaten and molested over an offence she did not commit. “In another development it takes the prompt intervention of Police operatives from Olasan Division, Mushin Area D Lagos State Police Command to safe a 53-year old woman from being lynched by an angry mob over baby theft in Lagos. The allegation was that she touched a baby and the baby disappeared. Police got there on time to rescue her. The lynch mob was dispersed with teargas.” The police PRO in reacting to the allegation stated that “The allegation has not been proven.
No parent/guardian has come forward yet to complain of a missing baby in that locality today. She’s currently at the station. Her husband has been contacted. “A civic organization, the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), has also condemned the killing of a man suspected to be among the gunmen that attacked the founder of Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleiman’s convoy in Edo State.” Decrying the current frightening situation of extrajudicial killings in the country, he recalled failed international interventions with the Nigerian government in curbing extrajudicial killings in the country. “Barely four years after the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnès Callamard visited Nigeria to see by herself and make report on the state of human rights implementation with regards to the rate of extrajudicial killing and other arbitrary executions within the first year of the second term of President Muhammadu Buhari in September 2019. The presidency vowed to deal with the extremism and other threats to peace and security like Boko Haram and the lawless armed gangs who roam parts of the country kidnapping people and holding them for ransom. “In her report, Agnes Callamard exposed the inability of the Nigerian government to adhere to the recommendations of her predecessor since 2006 on extrajudicial killings upon remarkable inadequacies of all levels of the Nigeria criminal justice system. She remarked that even after Nigerian government has acknowledged the recommendations under Nigeria’s Universal Periodic Review to reform the criminal justice system, the authorities have failed to apply all the recommendations.
Overall, law reform has been extremely slow, for example, the Police Act review took 16 years to be assented to. Instead of reforming and supporting the police so that it can improve its management of public order, the government deployed the military, undermining the role of the police. As of January 2020, the military was involved in security operations in 35 out of Nigeria’s 36 states, often taking over civilian policing functions.” He further disclosed that the UN Special rapporteur report, noted Death penalty… that unlawful killings have become a common place in the country since 1999, with many of these killings perpetrated by security forces. According to him further to the reports, the Cable Index also found out that there was a surge in the activities of insurgents and bandits in the northern part of the country, while gunmen and other criminal gangs carried out violent attacks in the southern part of the country. “Successive governments in Nigeria have used unlawful killings to quell secessionist upheavals and terrorist activities” he stressed. Mr. Ngwu remarked that in recent years, the number of deaths has increased rapidly. He lamented, “Suspects in a police custody or judicial custody suffer from physical torture, psychological torture, Sexual torture and sometimes rape and all these eventually leads to death of the suspect and these events come under the purview of extra judicial killings.” The anti-extrajudicial killings and jungle justice crusader illustrated the respective stances of the two schools that have emerged from the phenomenon of jungle justice. “The phenomenon of jungle justice has led to the development of two schools of thought: one that advocates its use and another that condemns it.
Those who advocate the application of mob justice claim that it is a good way of solving or curbing crime wave. They go on to argue that because it is administered by the people (masses), it should be considered as the supreme tribunal. Those who support jungle justice also hold that its frequent application is the best way to discourage robbery in society. They consider it an effective strategy to combat the wanton and atrocious acts of bandits. On the opposite side, those who reject jungle justice have highlighted its moral, biblical, legal and human rights implications to justify why it should be condemned.” In order to correct this situation, Mr. Ngwu recommended that there should be improved awareness driven advocacy to change the orientation of the people as well as improve the efficiency of the law enforcements in enforcing the law.
He expatiated, “The Nigerian government should resolve to adopt implementable measures of building confidence between the masses towards the security agencies, combating corruption in the judiciary system and security institutions, and engage the non-governmental agencies in educating the masses on the law and the legal implications of jungle justice and rekindling the spirit of duty consciousness and professionalism in public authorities. “There is urgent need for absolute overhaul of the criminal justice system and the orientation of the law enforcement agencies which should come periodically,” he added. The Catholic Bishops of Nigeria have consistently opposed death penalty. They continuously insist that death penalty degrades the society and is a violation of the right to life as well as an unauthorised usurpation by human beings of God’s sole lordship over life and death. According to them, when horrendous crimes are committed, it is easy to call for vengeance and retribution, it may seem the only fair thing to do is to take a life for a life, but the death penalty does not make Nigeria safer or a more civil country.
