Nigeria Content Online

Last week, the National Economic Council, made up of state governors and federal officials, backed the execution of close to 300 prisoners presently on death row, purportedly to reduce congestion in the jails. But human rights groups and legal activists have been quick to oppose this.

In 2009, the minister of foreign affairs, Ojo Maduekwe, told a meeting of the United Nations Universal (human rights) Periodic Review that Nigeria has 227 prisons with a combined capacity of 47,815 inmates. Most of the prisons are overfilled with inmates who are mostly awaiting trials.

The governors’ decision appear to be a reversion of the semi-official moratorium placed on execution of convicts – with the last official execution dating back to 2002.

Death to the people

“It was agreed that those people who have been condemned should be executed accordingly,” said Theodore Orji, governor of the southeastern state of Abia, after the meeting.

The Nigeria Death Penalty Group (NDPG) has, however, faulted the governors’ decision. The group, at the weekend, urged the state executives not to implement their decision, asking them to follow universal trends against the use of death penalty.

“The statement of the executive governor of Abia State is in no doubt a threat to the country’s unofficial moratorium,” an official of NGPG, Chino Obiagwu said.

The NDPG is a loose network of groups and individuals committed towards the abolition of the death penalty in Nigeria, convened by Legal Defence and Assistance Project.

“Nigeria has ratified several other international and regional instruments, including (the) African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) providing for the abolition of the death penalty,” the group said. “Nigeria has not officially carried out any execution for a while due to the enormous pressure from the international community and the Civil Society Organisations against the use of death penalty as a form of punishment.”

An official of the Nigerian Prisons, who spoke in Lagos, said the announced execution might not help. “A large percentage of the inmates in the prisons are merely awaiting trials, with fewer of them condemned,” he said, under condition of anonymity. “This is an indication that executing the few might not necessarily profer a solution to the state of Nigeria prisons.”

Poor prisons

The NDPG however said the major problem leading to prison congestion in Nigeria is the lack of infrastructure and inadequate funding by the government.

“Most prisons in Nigeria were built in the 1960s and the Nigerian government has neither expanded nor built additional prisons,” Mr. Obiagwu said. “Again, the state has always been the cause of delays in the prosecution of persons charged with various offences leading to prison congestion.”

It however advised the Abia State government to “set up its Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy to examine the cases of the prisoners on death row and make a recommendation on the suitability of commuting their sentences.”

Last Tuesday, April 20, 2010, inmates of Kaduna Prisons went on rampage, allegedly because of reports that the convicted former head of the Christ Praying Assembly, Reverend King, had been killed.

Two prisoners were also killed in the incident, during which some prisoners attempt to escape.

The jailbreak attempt was the second in less than two months, a problem which is said to have arisen from the congestion and poor amenities of the prison.

Some prison officials also explained that the prisoners were also not happy with the poor feeding arrangement at the prison and its overcrowded cells.

A report by Amnesty International shows that the 227 prisons in Nigerian have the following in common: congestion, dirt and inadequate medical and rehabilitation facilities.

As a result, many inmates fall sick and die before they are even tried.