It is worth emphasising that the death penalty often results from a travesty of justice or a miscarriage of justice. The cases of Rabiu v. State and Bello v. State remain some of the most infamous in Nigeria’s legal history, highlighting the dangers of miscarriage of justice in handing down death sentences. Both Rabiu and Alhaji Bello were convicted of armed robbery and wrongfully executed while their
appeals were still pending before the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The death penalty can also result from poor judgment, legal errors, or ignorance in applying the law. For instance, the Supreme Court recently upheld the death sentence of Sunday Jackson, a farmer in his 30s, who claimed to have killed an advancing Fulani herdsman in self-defence. Under Nigerian law, a person has the right to defend himself if he faces an imminent threat. If Jackson acted in self-defence, and if he was sentenced to death despite clear evidence of self-defence, it highlights the broader issue of wrongful convictions and the risks of the death penalty in Nigeria.
The Supreme Court’s position is that having overpowered his assailant who came to his (Jackson’s) farm to attack him, Jackson did not need to stab him three times to the extent of killing him, more so as he – Jackson – could have taken the option of running away. This view will remain contentious given that it was illogical for Jackson to run away from his farm; it was a fact that the assailant had stabbed Jackson on the leg before he (the assailant) was overpowered. If indeed that were so, shouldn’t the court have adverted its mind to the possibility that Jackson was already partially incapacitated and probably unable to run away from an assailant?
Additionally, factors such as wrongful convictions, errors in judgment, a weak judiciary system, coerced or misguided confessions, poor legal representation, judicial corruption, and bias in the justice system contribute to the execution of innocent persons. There have been cases where individuals on death row were later found to be wrongfully convicted, often due to poor legal representation, coerced confessions, or mishandling of evidence. Furthermore, many of those sentenced to death come from marginalised communities or disadvantaged backgrounds and often lack the financial means to secure proper legal counsel.
For these reasons, Nigeria should strongly consider abolishing the death penalty. Interestingly, many members of the international community have abolished the death penalty. This is largely due to prevailing cultural, moral, religious, and philosophical convictions regarding the sanctity and inviolability of human life, rooted in the belief that God created human life and that no man can take it away except God, the Creator. All world religions and cultures respect the sanctity of human life.
About 98 countries have abolished the death penalty entirely for all crimes, while seven have abolished it for ordinary crimes but maintain it for special circumstances (such as war crimes). Additionally, 35 countries have abolished it in practice, meaning they do not carry out executions even though it remains legal. For instance, Sweden abolished the death penalty in 1921, Switzerland in 1942, Germany in 1949, the United Kingdom in 1973, Canada in 1976, and France in 1981. In Finland, where capital punishment was abolished long ago, life imprisonment is the most severe punishment and is rarely imposed. Some countries have replaced the death penalty with long-term imprisonment, often requiring offenders to serve lengthy terms (15 or 25 years) before being considered for parole.
As of March 2025, the following African countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes: Cape Verde (1981), Mozambique (1990), Namibia (1990), São Tomé and Príncipe (1990), Angola (1992), Guinea-Bissau (1993), Seychelles (1993), Djibouti (1995), Mauritius (1995), South Africa (1997), Côte d’Ivoire (2000), Senegal (2004), Liberia (2005), Rwanda (2007), Burundi (2009), Togo (2009), Gabon (2010), the Republic of Congo (2015), Madagascar (2015), Benin (2016), Guinea (2017), Burkina Faso (2018), Chad (2020), Sierra Leone (2021), the Central African Republic (2022), Equatorial Guinea (2022), Zambia (2022), Ghana (2023), and Zimbabwe (2024).
Nigeria cannot remain at the level of mere rhetoric on the issue of the death penalty. Since state governors have stopped signing death warrants, they should commute the death sentences of convicts to life imprisonment or release them from detention. Detaining them indefinitely in prison is unacceptable. It is believed that almost a thousand condemned prisoners are languishing in Nigerian prisons, not knowing when they will be executed, despite having been sentenced to death. This is an affront to human dignity.
Therefore, Nigeria cannot continue to be ambivalent or indifferent on the issue of the death penalty. It must either completely abolish the death penalty in our statutes or commute the death sentences of prisoners on death row to life imprisonment. In any case, Section 12(c) of the Nigeria Correctional Service Act, 2019, gives the Chief Judge of a state the power to commute the death sentence of any convict who has spent 10 years in custody to life imprisonment. Many convicted Nigerians on death row have spent more than 10 years in prison. Therefore, pursuant to Section 12(c) of the Nigeria Correctional Service Act, 2019, they should be released, or their sentences should be commuted immediately.
Finally, as this newspaper has advocated in several editorials over the years, the federal government should initiate concrete criminal justice reforms capable of righting wrongs, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of bringing offenders to justice, and bolstering public confidence in the fairness of the country’s legal system.
Concluded.
