As today is marked globally, as the International Day against the Death Penalty, there appears to be divergent opinions among stakeholders in the country, as to whether the death penalty should be abolished in Nigeria or not.
Globally, 10th of October every year, is celebrate as World Day Against the Death Penalty, to advocate for the abolition of the death penalty and to raise awareness of the conditions and the circumstances which affect prisoners with death sentences.
The annual celebration usually chooses specific themes, to highlight certain issues surrounding capital punishment.
Over 142 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice, but the sentence still subsists in the bulk of Asian countries, in Nigeria and parts of the United States of America, USA.
Yesterday, Justice Ibironke Harrison of a Lagos High Court sentenced a police officer, Darambi Vandi, to death by hanging, for shooting a Lagos-based lawyer, Mrs Omobolanle Raheem to death last Christmas, at Ajah Roundabout, on Lekki- Expressway, Lagos State.
While the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre, RULAAC, a rights group is at home with the subjection of the erring police officer, to trial, it feels the death penalty should be abolished.
According to the Executive Director of the RULAAC, Okechukwu Nwanguma, death penalty does not suffice for anything good and only amounts to vengeance and makes it impossible to correct errors.
“We welcome the subjection of the Police officer to trial for the crime of extrajudicial killing, in line with the law.
“However, as a human rights organization, we believe that Nigeria should join other modern democracies in the world in abolishing the death penalty.
“Death penalty is inhumane, amounts to vengeance and prone to error. There is no evidence that it has achieved the objective of creating a deterrence to crime,” he noted.
Nwanguma further suggested that Nigeria should either abolish or order moratorium on the death penalty.
“Many countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, but it’s still on the books in places like China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The United States is divided on the death penalty and has a mixture of states where it’s legal, abolished, or halted with governor-issued moratoriums,” he said.
A human rights activist in the Southeast, Comrade Damian Ugwu regretted that politicians and government authorities often present the resumption of executions as a crime-control measure, despite the lack of convincing evidence of the deterrent effect of the death penalty on the overall crime situation.
He however noted that crime trends and patterns are determined by several factors that affect and change society at different levels, from the national macrocosm to the level of communities, families, and individuals.
In his opinion, the effectiveness of the relevant institutions, the police force, and the judiciary is critical to effectively addressing crime and changing the public perception of a society’s safety.
“Instead of expanding the scope of the death penalty to include kidnapping, for instance, the Nigerian government should direct its attention towards devising comprehensive crime prevention programs.
“There is also a need for the present government to draw attention to the human rights issues inherent in any discussion on the death penalty and to move towards abolishing this ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment,” he said.
But for an academic, Prof Dennis Aribodor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Nigeria is not ripe to do away with death penalty, considering the nation’s political landscape and the inefficiency of the nation’s security agencies.
According to him, the law was to deter people from committing those heinous crimes that will attract the death penalty.
“I strongly believe the death penalty should remain to keep people away from committing these crimes.
“By abolishing the death penalty in Nigeria, what you have done is to make a leeway for people to commit heinous crimes without recourse to any law.
“Also, if you have these perpetrators of heinous crimes arrested and committed to prison custody, because of how our political system is, you may find a government come in and because of interest, release these people, who return back to the streets to continue their stock in trade.
“There are people who should not be in the general population because of how they have decided to live in crime and all manner of negativity.
“So, I believe the law should remain to make sure that people understand the consequences that await them for some actions, and this will make them avoid committing such things,” he said.
