The decision lately by the Director-Common of the Nationwide Company for Meals and Drug Administration and Management (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, for imposition of the demise sentence for pretend drug sellers is actually borne out of her concern for the intense hurt such individuals are inflicting on members of the society. The decision, nevertheless, as soon as once more reignites the hair-splitting debate over the constitutionality, propriety, and philosophical underpinning—or in any other case—of the demise penalty in Nigeria. In justifying her name for the demise penalty for illicit drug convicts, Adeyeye described illicit drug peddlers and drug barons as “retailers of demise,” who prioritise making enormous quantities of unlawful cash on the expense of the lives of their fellow human beings. She, due to this fact, argued that the correct punishment for convicted drug peddlers is the demise penalty. In the identical vein, the Chairman/Chief Government Officer of the Nationwide Drug Regulation Enforcement Company (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd), made an identical name in the course of the debate on the modification to the provisions of the 2004 Nationwide Drug Regulation Enforcement Company Act final 12 months. Throughout that debate, the 2 chambers of the Nationwide Meeting have been divided over the difficulty of the demise penalty for drug peddlers.
Whereas the Senate prescribed the demise penalty, the Home of Representatives prescribed life imprisonment. Nonetheless, in the course of the adoption of the report of a convention committee of the 2 chambers, the Nationwide Meeting opted for life imprisonment for drug peddlers. Admittedly, there was a appreciable rise within the crime charge, particularly amongst youths, because of the rising charge of drug abuse. It’s estimated that 15 million Nigerians, aged between 15 and 64 years, abuse medicine. The impacts are seen. Drug and substance abuse, particularly among the many nation’s largely youthful inhabitants, is more and more fuelling political thuggery, constituting each a current and future hazard. Nonetheless, the demise penalty might not be the answer to the menace of illicit, pretend medicine and adulterated merchandise in Nigeria and even another capital offence. The talk over the demise penalty, as in different nations, has continued in Nigeria through the years. Though Part 33 (1) of the 1999 Structure permits the demise penalty in sure circumstances, Nigerian state governors are not signing demise warrants.
The final demise warrant signed by a Nigerian state governor was in 2016, when Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State signed the demise warrants for 2 males convicted of homicide. El-Rufai’s resolution was extremely controversial because it reignited the controversy over the demise penalty in Nigeria, particularly since there had been a moratorium on executions for a few years in some states. Since then, many governors, together with these in states the place the demise penalty stays authorized, have shunned signing demise warrants, reflecting a broader shift in direction of advocating for the abolition or moratorium on the demise penalty in Nigeria. Regardless of the moratorium on executions, individuals sentenced to demise nonetheless stay on demise row. Holding these condemned prisoners in indefinite incarceration is a violation of their basic human rights and private dignity, as enshrined in Part 33 of the 1999 Structure and Article 4 of the African Constitution on Human and Individuals’s Rights, which has been ratified and domesticated by Nigeria. When an accused particular person is sentenced to demise and is not executed as a result of their demise warrant has not been signed, they start to serve a separate penalty—an unsure time period of imprisonment beneath psychological torture. They die day-to-day as they await a hangman who could by no means come. In consequence, their basic human rights to the dignity of the human particular person and private liberty are violated. This was why the Supreme Court docket, in Peter Nemi v. Legal professional-Common of Lagos State, held that the proper to life is obtainable even to condemned prisoners or prisoners on demise row till their execution is carried out based on the legislation. Due to this fact, to disclaim them their basic rights merely primarily based on a demise sentence can’t stand the check of civilised conduct, because it debases their intrinsic price as human beings. The long-standing place of this newspaper has been that human life is inviolable and can’t be intentionally and deliberately taken away by a human being—solely God, the Creator, has that energy. Human life is the primary and biggest reward, most eloquently conveyed within the Latin maxim: vivere viventibus est esse (“To residing issues, life is existence”). On this regard, it’s our view that drug barons who’re convicted shouldn’t be sentenced to demise. It’s also our view that the destiny of these on demise row mustn’t stay in limbo just because state governors are undecided about whether or not to signal demise warrants. If state governors refuse to signal demise warrants, they need to not less than commute demise sentences to life imprisonment. Holding prisoners on demise row in indefinite incarceration, topic to the whims, caprices, or procrastination of state governors, is, to say the least, a monumental injustice that cries out to the heavens for treatment. Extra importantly are findings that the demise penalty is not a deterrent to capital crime and that some condemned prisoners are victims of miscarriage of justice, Due to this fact, the nation’s lawmakers in any respect ranges ought to contemplate abolishing the demise penalty altogether by quashing its provisions in our statutes—simply as many nations are actually doing. Alternatively, lawmakers ought to promulgate new legal guidelines stating that these sentenced to demise ought to have their sentences mechanically commuted to life imprisonment with out requiring the state governor’s ratification. Another choice is to enact a legislation stipulating that if a state governor fails or neglects to signal a demise warrant inside three or 4 months, the demise sentence must be deemed commuted to life imprisonment. In Lagos State, the Administration of Felony Justice Regulation, 2015, must be leveraged to handle this subject, notably Part 470(1)(c) of the Act, which empowers the Administration of Felony Justice Monitoring Committee to make sure that correctional centres are decongested to the barest minimal.
To be continued tomorrow.
