DEATH ROW CONVICTS AND MATTERS ARISING
State governors should do what is right
As of April, according to a recent disclosure by the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS) spokesperson, Abubakar Umar, a total of 3,504 inmates were on death row in Nigeria, comprising 73 females and 3,431 males. Meanwhile, the last execution carried out in the country was in 2016 by then Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole. “There has been no inmate on death row that has been executed in the last year,” said Umar, even when execution of death sentences has not been expunged from our criminal justice system. “It is still there in our statutes and books, but the executive must sign their death warrants before we can carry out executions, and this is not forthcoming in recent times.”
Excuses for the delay in executing the death sentences range from shortage of hang men to the lack of will on the part of state governors who have the ultimate power to confirm, commute or ameliorate the death sentences. Whatever may be the justifications, prolonged solitude is not only detrimental for the psychology of death row inmates but also negates the international treaties, declarations and other documents to which Nigeria is a signatory. It is an inherent violation on their rights and dignity to keep people interminably on death row, especially for cases that have been concluded by the Supreme Court. Some of these condemned persons have spent years waiting to die in the hands of the law. They live in uncertainty on a day-to-day basis.
The use of capital punishment as the ultimate deterrence for crimes involving loss of lives is replete with yet unresolved moral questions. Those who insist on its efficacy argue that the fear of death is man’s highest nightmare and that those who know that their crimes will attract the death sentence would think twice before killing another person. Those with the contrary viewpoint insist that hardened criminals will not be deterred by the fear of death because of their criminal acts. The knowledge that the consequence of their homicidal crime is predetermined death could in fact make such criminals more brutal.
This latter argument goes further to indicate that the state, by resorting to capital punishment, risks being guilty of the same killing for which it is punishing those condemned to death for crimes involving the loss of lives. If the state kills the condemned murderer, the argument goes, it reduces the population by two instead of one. Moreover, the state ought to exercise greater moral restraint by presenting a more humane, forgiving and corrective disposition even towards those who kill others. Therefore, the moral conundrum of the capital punishment argument encumbers the state with a huge burden.
This debate continues to rage among sociologists, moral philosophers and jurisprudence experts without the prospect of an easy resolution. In the interim, Nigeria has an urgent crisis in its burgeoning numbers of inmates on death row. Of all the powers conferred on leaders, that over life or death is the most sacrosanct and sobering. And we do not believe Governors should continue to shirk their responsibility in this regard. Allowing convicts to waste away in prison until they die is worse than signing their death warrants.
The growing population of those whom the state says must die is an indictment of our mechanism for wielding the ultimate power of life and death which is the highest moral definition of sovereign power. Our state governors must see this situation as a serious challenge requiring urgent but delicate exercise and action. The options are within reach. Depending on the gravity of the offence, governors should consider exercising the prerogative of mercy to commute some death sentences to life or order speedy execution of those who must die.
