Nigeria Prisons Service in Dilemma over 1640 Criminals Sentenced to Death

• Comptroller General says governors not willing to sign death sentences of condemned persons

By Dele Ogbodo in Abuja

The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS), Mr. Ahmed Ja’afaru, at the weekend said the service is facing dilemma over what to do with the 1640 criminals in its custody that have been condemned to death by the courts.

Speaking in Abuja, the CG of the NPS, who was represented by an Assistant Comptroller General of Prisons ((ACG), Mr. Mohammed Bedi, said the silent moratorium by state governors which borders on their unwillingness to endorse death sentences of condemned criminals is a big problem to the service.

According to the CG, a condemned  person had inevitably arrived at his/her, last bus stop and therefore such a person becomes vicious, uncontrollable as death does not really matter any more.

Ja’afaru said: “So, the  problem of condemned prisoners is still a very big challenged to NPS and we have been appealing to the relevant authorities specially to the governors.

“As you know, when someone gets to his last bus stop and is condemned to death and has exhausted his appeal in the Supreme Court, the only opportunity he has to escape death is the governor commuting his death sentence to a term of imprisonment or sign the death warrant for this person to take his last breath.”

The CG, who said the governors are not helping matters, added: “But you know there is a kind of silent moratorium that most governors are not too willing to endorse death sentences.

“You are not signing their execution, yet you are not commuting their death sentences to terms of imprisonment, so that we can get them transferred to a place where they can be reformed or rebranded for the society. 

“They therefore create a very big problem for us; however, we keep appealing that governors should do the needful so that we will be able to really manage these people effectively.”

The CG cautioned the public against stigmatizing persons that have been rehabilitated by the services, stressing, that most times prisoners who are on the side of the law as soon as the person goes into the prison, the person is usually not welcome back to the society.

He said: “I don’t see stigmatizing as a deterring effect, because you are indirectly pushing that person back to criminal life, because if he is rejected, there are groups that are ready to absorb him into their fold.”

He called for expedited court process to bring to book Persons Awaiting Trial (PAT), adding that this is also one of the challenges being faced by the NPS.

The Prison boss said said: “On the challenges of PAT, one painful thing I want us to take home from the PAT phenomenon, is that he or she is not entitled to the training programme of NPS because the person is still deemed innocent. 

“For instance, a rapist needs a different approach to managing him and reforming him before he is returned to the society than an armed robber or a murderer.”

On the Incessant Jail breaks last year, he said the human, logistics and infrastructural challenges that confronted it have been addressed, adding that government for the first time promoted over 10,979 staff that were due for it, while over 400 newly vehicles have been bought with expansion and construction of buildings to address the challenges facing the service.