Long-term imprisonment as political compromise for death penalty

While Section 30(1) of Nigeria’s Constitution recognises the death penalty as a form of punishment for heinous crimes, the reluctance by state governors to sign warrants for death row inmates, or commute their sentences, however, questions the propriety of retaining it in the county’s statute books. BERTRAM NWANNEKANMA reports that calls for the abrogation of the death sentence in our statute are gaining ground.

The recent call by the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, for the death sentence for fake drug dealers has again reignited the debate on the relevance of the death penalty in Nigeria’s grundnorm.

Justifying the call, Adeyeye described illicit drug barons as “merchants of death”, who prioritise making huge amounts of illegal money at the expense of the lives of their fellow human beings.

She said her call for the introduction of the death penalty for drug peddlers, particularly those whose actions result in the death of children, was due to the magnitude of damage that their actions bring upon society.

Also, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Retd) made a similar call for drug traffickers before the National Assembly, in its wisdom, decided to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment for hard and illicit drug peddlers.

However, stakeholders believe that the resort to long-term imprisonment appears to be a political compromise by the government based on shaky notions of “dangerousness” and international condemnation that have continued to trail the death penalty.

Recently, the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS) in Cross River State raised concerns over the declining number of inmates in its facilities, stating that the shortage is affecting farming and community service programmes.

Speaking at a two-day town hall meeting on the Implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL), organised by CLEEN Foundation, the Chief Superintendent of Corrections in charge of Statistics, Mr Ibiang Otu, who represented the State Controller, Mr William Frai, revealed that the state currently has only 897 inmates across its six correctional facilities, the lowest in the South-South region of Nigeria.

Many stakeholders believe that engaging the death row inmates in such a productive venture can offer a better option than the death sentence.

With about 3,504 death row inmates in correctional facilities across the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Federal Government spending about N291.99 million monthly to maintain this category of inmates.

The figure stemmed from former Minister of Internal Affairs, Rauf Areghesola’s disclosure that the federal government spends N83,333 per inmate every month for sundry needs, including feeding.

According to Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS) spokesperson, Abubakar Umar, as of April 15, 2024, Nigeria has a total of 3,504 inmates on death row, comprising 73 females and 3,431 males.

Apart from feeding and rehabilitation, reformatory programmes are also being extended to these inmates, including skill empowerment and academic opportunities, thereby heaping more costs on the government.

Recently, the NCoS proposed an increase in the daily feeding allowance of inmates to N3,000 per day, amounting to N90,000 monthly. This will translate to N315,360,000 million for feeding death row inmates alone monthly.

Not long ago, the Comptroller General of the NCoS, Haliru Nababa, explained while appearing before a joint National Assembly Committee on Interior, that the management of the Correctional Service has sent a letter to the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, requesting an increment in the daily feeding allowance for inmates.

With dwindling revenue and increasing demands on the federation, the continuous spending of such colossal sums on death row inmates has become an undesirable venture.

More so, state governors’ reluctance to sign death warrants for those, who have exhausted their appeals, has left many wondering about the wisdom of retaining death sentences in our statute books, especially considering the costs to the government.

With the last execution in the country carried out in 2012, the figure of death row inmates will continue to rise as courts dish out more death sentences.

For instance, by virtue of Section 297(2) of the Criminal Law Ch. C17 Vol. 3 Laws of Lagos State, 2015, any person found guilty of the offence of armed robbery is convicted and sentenced to death.

The same law provides for death as punishment to any person convicted of murder (Section 223 of the Law).

However, by Section 308 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law Chapter A3 Laws of Lagos State, 2015, the governor upon advice from the Advisory Council of Prerogative of Mercy may commute the sentence to life imprisonment, any specific period or decide to pardon or grant a reprieve.

In circumstances where the governor has not exercised the power granted under Section 308 above which is also supported by the provision of Section 212 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the only available remedy is to carry out the sentence of the court as provided for in Section 309 of the Law.

But as much as some governors may be prepared to sign these death warrants, some of the condemned inmates are serving time out of jurisdictions where they were convicted.

The NCoS relies on the provisions of Section 5 of the Old Prisons Act (Nigeria Correctional Service Act, 2019) to move condemned inmates from one custodial centre to another.

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.

Call for death sentence abrogation
THE choice today for prosecutors, jurors, legislators, and the courts is usually between the death penalty and a sentence of life without parole (LWOP).

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.

For the Country Director of Avocats Sans Frontières France (ASF France) in Nigeria, Mrs. Angela Uwandu Uzoma-Iwuchukwu, there is the need for Nigeria to consider a shift of focus to pre-trial issues, rather than on death row inmates.

“We have Section 12 of the Nigeria Correctional Service Act, if implemented it will help a lot to reduce the number of persons on death row.

“But the major question is, why are the authorities shying away from implementing it? We at ASF France will be writing to the governors of various states and their chief judges to see how they can implement this Act.

“The section permits chief judges to commute the death sentence of those who have stayed over 10 years and have exhausted their appeal without execution to life imprisonment.

“We are also going to be writing to the controllers of correctional facilities to ensure the implementation of this Act. Also, we are advocating for an official moratorium on the execution of those on death row. As of now, there is no official moratorium, even though the governors are hesitant to sign the death warrants.

“That was the issue we had with Governor Adams Oshiomhole because he insisted that there was no official moratorium.

“Finally we are advocating that our law should now respond to calls for the abolition of the death penalty as has been done in many countries. Since our governors are not willing to implement it, then it should not form part of our laws,” she added.

Supporting this position, a former vice president of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Dr Monday Ubani SAN, called for the abrogation of the death sentence in our statutes if the approving authorities (the governors) are not ready to sign the execution warrant.

According to him, if they are not even ready to commute it to life imprisonment after 10 years as envisaged in the act, then the National Assembly should remove the piece of law that prescribes the death penalty as a punishment for capital offences.

“Most countries have abolished the death penalty in their record books. Instead of the death penalty, let us commute it to a life sentence, and allow them to live again.
Most of them have repented. So, why put it in the law books when you cannot implement it? It is not worth it.

“The best international practice is the removal of the death sentence in the books, most advanced countries are advocating for it, but we say we want to retain it and we are not implementing it so what is the use? We better remove it,” he added.

But constitutional lawyer, Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN), subscribes to the death sentence stressing that if one kills, she or she should also be killed.

He blamed the governors for abandoning their constitutional responsibilities.

According to him, if the governors do not dare to perform their executive responsibilities of either signing the death warrants or commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment as stipulated by law, then the National Assembly should abolish the death penalty so that all those in death sentence can be transformed to life imprisonment.

“If you don’t have the courage to exercise power, either you sign a death warrant or commute it to life imprisonment,” he added.

Etigwe Uwa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria throws his weight behind life imprisonment or long imprisonment for crime that carries the death sentence.

He stressed: “If somebody takes someone else’s life, and life imprisonment or long imprisonment is imposed, the chances are that the convict will suffer for a long period, and justice would be better served via this restriction of movement and freedom.

“But in the case of execution, the convict will just feel that temporary pain for maybe five to ten minutes, and that is it. So I think that the whole idea of the death penalty is something that we should look at again and see if it can be done away with.”

Uwa added that if the death penalty must still be imposed, “it should be for people who are involved in mass killings, like terrorists, who are so unrepentant, and there’s nothing that you can do to reform them. This is the only situation where I may reluctantly accede to the imposition of the death penalty, but not for drug-related offences or murder.”

Also sharing Uwa’s position is Human Rights Lawyer and Former President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Malachy Ugwumadu, who believes that other forms of punishment would do instead of the death sentence.

According to him, sufficient and verifiable data have indicated that the main purpose for the death penalty, which is deterrence, is never achieved hence the uselessness of retaining it. In addition to that, he said that political actors in Nigeria, have clearly shown a lack of courage to do what the extant law mandates them to do as far as death sentence is concerned.

“So, in all, I share the view that we should not encourage the death sentence. I know that it doesn’t quite sit well with most people whose relatives are victims of violent criminal acts and that is fine, but on the whole, there are many reasons why we are grieving, including the fact that many innocent people have been condemned.

Also, a former Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Adeniji Kazeem (SAN), noted that under Section 30(1) of the Constitution, the right to life, although fully guaranteed is nevertheless subject to the execution of a death sentence of a court of law in respect of a criminal offence of which one has been found guilty in Nigeria.

According to him: “In my view it is plain that the 1979 Constitution can by no stretch of the imagination be said to have proscribed or outlawed the death penalty.

“On the contrary, Section 30(1) of the Constitution permits it in the clearest possible terms, so long as it is inflicted pursuant to the sentence of a court of law in Nigeria in a criminal offence.

“In other words, section 30(1) of the Constitution recognises the death penalty as a form of punishment but only on the condition that it is in the execution of the sentence of a court of law in a criminal offence of which an accused person has been found guilty in Nigeria.

“The plain meaning of this section of the constitution cannot be derogated from in the absence of any ambiguity whatsoever. It simply guarantees and protects the right to life.

“But it also recognises deprivation of life so long as it is under the execution of the sentence of a court in a criminal offence of which the accused has been found guilty in Nigeria,” he said.