Rights groups reject moves to execute death row inmates

Human rights organisations have criticized the approval by the Federal Government to review or sign the death warrants of 2, 359 death row prison inmates in the country.

The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN) had at the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting last week asked state governors to act in line with Section 212 of the 1999 Constitution on the number of inmates sentenced to death, as a means of decongesting the prisons, which has about 73, 631 inmates nationwide.

The Executive Director of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE), Sylvester Uhaa said it was worrisome that the country is planning the executions, when the rest of the world is moving away from the death penalty and finding solutions to violent crimes.

“It is not true, as claimed by the governors and the Attorney-General of the Federation that death row inmates in Nigeria pose the greatest security risk to the Prison Service and society because they constitute about two percent of the prison population,” he said.

Also speaking, the director of the Avocats Sans Frontiere France (ASFF) otherwise known as Lawyers Without Borders, Angela Uwandu said if the executions are done it would do little to decongest the prison population.

She asked government to adopt the international moratorium on executions and convert the death sentences to other kinds of imprisonment taking into consideration the age and health conditions of the affected inmates, and their number of years already spent in prison.