By Job Osazuwa

On August 4, an Akwa Ibom State High Court in Uyo, sentenced Uduak Akpan to death by hanging for the murder of a young job seeker, Iniubong Umoren.

Trial judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang, also sentenced him to life imprisonment for sexual abuse of the victim.

Akpan had last year promised Iniubong a job only for him to rape and kill her. During his parade by the Akwa Ibom State Police Command, he confessed that he invited Umoren over for a fake job and then demanded to have sex with her. After raping her, he killed and buried her in a shallow grave to cover his deed.

Also, on July 28, the Kano State High Court sentenced to death by hanging the proprietor of Nobel Kids Academy and North West Preparatory School, Abdulmalik Tanko, being principal suspect who masterminded the kidnap and killing of five-year-old schoolgirl, Hanifa Abubakar.

The trio of Abdulmalik (proprietor of Nobel Kids Academy and North West Preparatory School) alongside his accomplices, Hashim Isyaku and Fatima Jibrin, were arraigned before the court by the Kano State government on a five-count charge of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, confinement and culpable homicide, contrary to sections 97, 274, 277, 221 of the Penal Code.

The judge also sentenced the second defendant, Ishyaku, to death by hanging and four years imprisonment (two years each for conspiracy and concealment).

In March, an Ikeja High Court sentenced a middle-aged man, Moses Haruna, to death by hanging for killing a man with a knife and an iron bar.

Justice Oyindamola Ogala, in her judgement, found Haruna guilty of the two-count charge of conspiracy to murder and murder and sentenced him to death by hanging without an option, after she had found him guilty of the offences.

She added that the prosecution had proved its case against him beyond reasonable doubt, as stipulated by law.

Haruna committed the offences with two others on February 13, 2020, at 5am at Anthony Village playground, Lagos.

Apart from the above convictions, there have been hundreds of convictions over the years. But Nigerians have asked why many of these condemned criminals were yet to be dispatched to the great beyond.

No doubt, even though the death sentence is legal in Nigeria, executions are apparently a rarity in the country.

In October 2020, a man who killed nine women in a case that caused outrage in Nigeria was sentenced to death in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The judge, while meting out the punishment, said 40-year-old Gracious David-West strangled his victims in hotel rooms across Nigeria between July and September 2019.

On January 28, 2020, the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, convicted and sentenced Maryam Sanda to death by hanging for killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello.

Delivering judgment, Justice Yusuf Halilu said “every available evidence” had proved that Maryam “fatally” stabbed her husband to death in Abuja on November 19, 2017.

On December 17, 2019, Justice Raliat Adebiyi of an Ikeja High Court in Lagos sentenced a Nigerian prince to death by hanging for strangling his boss to death and dumping her body in a well.

Prince Adewale Oyekan murdered Alhaja Sikirat Ekun, a businesswoman and politician, on October 1, 2012. Oyekan, who managed Ekun’s restaurant, paid her former domestic servant, Lateef Balogun, N6,000 to kill her, the prosecution revealed.

One of the cases that Nigerians cannot easily forget is that of a popular Lagos cleric and leader of Christian Praying Assembly (CPA), Rev. Chukuemeke Ezeugo King. King’s death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court and he has been awaiting the hangman’s noose for almost 10 years.

He was arraigned on September 26, 2006, on a six-count charge of attempted murder and murder but he pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

King was sentenced to death by the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja, on January 11, 2007, for the murder of Ann Uzoh and the Court of Appeal, Lagos, upheld his death sentence in 2013.

Investigation revealed that the last three executions were in 2016. Year in, year out, the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) has continued to swell with inmates on death row.

Perturbed by the development, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, on July 22, prevailed on state governors, reminding them of the need to sign the death warrants of the 3,008 condemned criminals waiting for execution, especially those whose appeals had been exhausted and were not mounting challenges to their convictions, as part of measures to decongest prisons nationwide.

Aregbesola, who spoke while inaugurating the Osun State command headquarters complex of the NCS in Osogbo, stressed the need to bring to closure the cases involving the inmates.

The minister enumerated three avenues to decongest prisons, saying governors could accelerate the wheel of justice, as many inmates had been in custody for a period longer than the maximum sentence their alleged offences carry, which he described as miscarriage of justice.

Aregbesola also urged states to share in the burden of decongesting custodial facilities by constructing holding centres, adding that all the states needed to do was to build the facilities to specification and set aside a sum for the maintenance of inmates, while the NCS provides the personnel to man and run the facilities.

He said: “The third way is for state governors to summon the will to do the needful on death row convicts. There are presently 3,008 condemned criminals waiting for their date with the executioners in our meagre custodial facilities. This consists of 2,952 males and 56 females.

“In cases where appeal has been exhausted and the convicts are not mounting any challenge to their conviction, the state should go ahead, one, to do the needful and bring closure to their cases; two, set some others free on compassionate grounds, especially those who have grown old on account of the long time they have been in custody, those who are terminally ill and those who have been reformed and demonstrated exceptionally good behaviour; and, three, commute others’ sentences to life or a specific term in jail.”

In the same vein, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said in 2012 that, since the return of democratic government in 1999, only two governors summoned the courage to sign death warrants for the execution of death row inmates in the country.

The former governor of Kano State and presidential candidate in the 2011 general election, Ibrahim Shekarau, was the first to have signed in 2006, while the second was by then Governor Adams Oshiomhole in October 2012.

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The former Kano governor reportedly endorsed the execution of seven inmates on death row, all sentenced to death in the state, while Oshiomhole ratified the execution of two persons in his state. The situation has not changed till date.

Falana explained that the legal and sociological implications of the action make it hard for civilian governors to authorize the execution of a death sentence.

He said: “There is a sociological angle to the issue of executing death row inmates. Most prisons find it difficult to find hangmen. It is difficult to find a Nigerian who would be proud of an occupation of killing people. And, more importantly, it is difficult for civilian governors to ratify the killing of other citizens, even though they have been convicted.

“It is not easy for the governors because it is official murder. The reason for penalties in law is for correction, not execution. It is a fact that the death penalty has not served as a deterrent anywhere in the world.”

He added that the sentence of the death row inmates would eventually be turned into life sentence due to the pressure on the prisons and global campaign against the death penalty.

But the NCS has said that the delay in their execution is beyond its scope: “Our job is to keep them safe. It is the governors that would sign their execution order.”

Speaking on the issue, the Chief Missioner of Ansar-Deen Sociefy of Nigeria, Sheikh Abdulrahman Ahmed, told the reporter that he was aware of the international movement against the death penalty, with the argument that it is too harsh and doesn’t solve the problem or stop others from commiting the same crime.

“This is the view that is coming from the western world (Europe, America and other developed nations being led by America). Despite the hype and campaign against it, America practices it, particularly outside the shores of its country.

“But that is not substantive. The substantive argument is, as far as the sharia is concerned, the death penalty in extreme cases of wilful murder, assassination or mass murder is approved by Islam. Other faiths might not also tolerate these kinds of criminality, but I’m speaking for Islam here.

“This is so because life is sacred. Only the Creator can give life and He alone has the authority to take life. We believe that, as far as that authority is concerned, the law on this should be obeyed, particularly on wilful murder. Let’s take note that there is a difference between wilful murder and manslaughter. The case of manslaughter is totally different as seen in the sharia of Islam.

“The submission is that those who take human lives deliberately should also die. That is why, in the Islamic legal system, the death penalty of a thing is not handled with levity. It is something that must be thoroughly investigated. And the offence or crime must be proven and established beyond all reasonable doubts. And once that has been done without hastiness and by a competent court of law, a death penalty is pronounced.

“Here, when I say a competent court, we are not talking of individuals who are not properly constituted to a court. We are not talking of jungle justice here or retaliation based on people’s emotions. It is not allowed, because only a court of competent jurisdiction could pronounce a death penalty. And when the case is properly investigated, then it is the creation of the law, as far as sharia is concerned,” he explained.

A lawyer based in Awka, Anambra State, Mr. Jonathan Uche, told Daily Sun the law should be sacrosanct on every issue of public interest.

“The fact remains that, if the law states that governors ought to sign death warrants, then they should not hesitate in doing so. The governor is at this point serving as an institution in that capacity, not as an individual.

“On the social aspect, however, if the majority of Nigerians believe that the death penalty is too harsh and should be abolished, then they should mandate the National Assembly to abolish it from our laws. This is the beauty of democracy.

“This has to with the law and the law ought to be followed. Therefore, governors should play their part. Another aspect is that the convicts must have exhausted their right of appeal before the governors sign the death warrants,” Uche said.

On signing death warrants, programme manager, Legal Defence Assistance Project (LEDAP), Mrs. Pamela Okoroigwe, said in 2021 she was yet to come to terms with why governors are reluctant to sign death warrant or grant moratorium or to support abolition of death penalty, because the death penalty has been provided for in the statute books as a mandatory punishment for capital offences.

“Even the Supreme Court has in the locus classicus of Onuoha Kalu vs. the State and Azeez Okoro vs. the State (1998) held that death penalty is not unconstitutional in Nigeria. The governors don’t want to be seen as persons challenging the grundnorm.

“Nigeria is a very religious country. They don’t want to sign death warrants because they believe death penalty to be morally and religiously wrong. Some of them believe that life is sacred and since the state didn’t create life, why should they take life? Also, they understand that the possibility of executing an innocent person is very high, given the terrible state of our criminal justice system,” Okoroigwe stated. 

Also, Finbarr Nweke, a lawyer and of the Inclusion and Justice Project (TIP), had in 2021 wondered the way forward for those who have spent over 10 years on death row and the consequences of sustaining them with public funds. On why governors do not sign death warrants, Nweke said cultural and religious factors play major roles.

All the governors, he noted, belong to one cultural/religious group or the other. These cultures and religions, he said, have their respective beliefs and one thing common among them is the belief in sanctity of human life.

“It is a common ground that one should not take another’s life and, where you do, the blood automatically is on the head of such person. Similarly, traditional religious practitioners also believe that taking human life under whatever circumstance is a sacrilege,” he stated.

Ganduje had in the past explained what could be the rationale behind the reluctance of governors to sign death warrants on convicted prisoners, pointing out shoddy judicial processes as a major reason.

He cited the case that involved a former governor, who signed a death warrant for a convicted criminal to be executed but later found out that the judgment was faulty.

Said he: “At one time, he signed the warrant and somebody was executed judiciously. Later on, it was discovered that he was not supposed to have been executed.

“Following that incident, governors became more careful about death warrants. From time to time, we sign, but we think that issue should be looked at constitutionally to find out what measures can be put in place so that people are not killed only to discover later that they were not supposed to have been be killed. And you cannot retrieve the life of any creature.”

Speaking with the reporter, an evangelist, Godwin Akhigbe, said: “One thing we need to ask ourselves is whether the death penalty law has been able eliminate high-profile crimes.

“In my opinion, government should revisit the law and replace it with something softer and rehabilitative. As a preacher of the Word, God is not happy over any soul lost. In fact, the Bible records it that there is joy in heaven over every soul won.”

He believes that prevention is the best way to eradicate crime from Nigeria. He charged Nigerians to shun every act of criminality and other activities that might bring shame to their families and the country.

“Though we don’t encourage people to indulge in crime, irrespective of the circumstances, some of the convicted criminals might have committed manslaughter. But the fear is that there might not be enough evidence to put forward during defence in the court.

“I have visited many prisons to listen to inmates and I can tell you that some of the stories are very touching. My duty is to keep praying for them and asking God to give them contrite hearts. God will deliver every hardened criminal from death row and give them a new life,” Akhigbe said.