HANDLING DEATH-ROW INMATES

It is wrong to keep people interminably on death row

The Lagos State Controller of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS), Francis Adebisi, recently disclosed that 352 inmates are on death row at the Kirikiri Maximum Correctional Centre with 150 other inmates serving life jail terms. Across the country, there are almost 4,000 death-row inmates. Whatever may be the justifications, prolonged solitude is a punishment that is detrimental for the psychology of death row inmates. It also negates the international treaties, declarations and other documents that establish the scope of prisoner rights to which Nigeria is a signatory. A clear reference is the UN adopted Standards Rules of 1955 that recognise solitary confinement and prolonged segregation as appropriate only in exceptional circumstances and to be used sparingly. 

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. To put it in context, prisoners on death row are condemned to a kind of existential limbo, existing as entities in cold storage rather than living as human beings. We, therefore, imagine the harrowing spell condemned prisoners go through daily in solitary cells, humbled by the force of an impending death that seems to be an eternity. 

The obligation on the governors is specifically enshrined in Section 212 of the 1999 Constitution as well as Section 221 of the Penal Code and Section 319 of the Criminal Code. All these codes prescribe capital punishment for murder while sections 37 and 38 of the Criminal Code prescribe the same punishment for treasonable felony. There is of course a global campaign against capital punishment, but it is still applicable in Nigeria. Majority of these death row inmates are in solitary confinement having been convicted for such offences as murder, treason, treachery, and armed robbery. Some states in the country have also enacted capital punishment for those convicted of kidnapping. 

A solution to the rising cases of prisoners on death row is to carry out a thorough review of the Administration of Justice Criminal Act. The review will reduce incidents of prisoners on death row being held outside their states of conviction and allow governors to consider their sentences when such cases are brought forward. In the meantime, they must deal with the issue of those that are already condemned, one way or another. That is what leadership demands. 

Statutorily, there is no compulsion to sign warrants for the execution of people on death row. There are prerogative powers to commute such sentences to lifetime in jail or reduced jail terms. These condemned prisoners can also be granted state pardon, therefore putting a closure to the matter. But it is morally reprehensible to leave them perpetually on death row, especially for cases that have been concluded by the Supreme Court. It is therefore little surprise that this category of inmates, according to the NCS, were becoming difficult to control. “On those on death row, we have crisis on our hands. Of course, you know that this category of inmates is very difficult to maintain or control. They are afraid of nothing because they know that they are already destined to die,” said the NCS Public Relations Officer, Francis Enobore. 

Against the background that the NCS Act provides for some mitigations, we urge Ja’afaru. to liaise with the judiciary on how to operationalise Section 12(2c) which specifically provides that “where an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all legal procedures for appeal and a period of 10 years has elapsed without execution of the sentence, the Chief Judge may commute the sentence of death to life imprisonment.” 

We endorse this prescription as a solution to the problem.