Bloodshed in the civil war, which lasted from July 1967 to January 1970, spilled over into the early 1970s and has risen ever since; highlighted first by armed robberies, then by ritual murders and, lately, by cult killings on and outside university campuses.
Over four decades ago, brazen criminals such as Ishola Oyenusi and Babatunde Folorunsho robbed and murdered with glee, even in broad day light, and boasted about it in public confessions.
The shock of the audacity made the Yakubu Gowon junta to introduce the firing squad in 1970 to deter ‘armed robbers’. But ‘pen robbers’ in public and private establishments got off lightly, and flaunted their loot from inflated contracts, bribes, and other forms of financial crime.
Some insist the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ embedded in the death penalty deters crime commission. Some counter that capital punishment has not reduced crime, and want it abolished.
Mary Ogedengbe and Charles Ihejirika weigh up the pros and cons.
President Goodluck Jonathan made a clarion call to governors on June 16, 2013 to sign the death warrants of condemned criminals, but he did it at the wrong place – the church, the citadel of grace.
“Even governors sometimes find it difficult to sign (death warrant). I have been telling the governors that they must sign because that is the law.
“The work we are doing has a very sweet part and a very ugly part and we must perform both. No matter how painful it is, it is part of their responsibilities,” he said.
That speech was delivered at Aso Villa Chapel in Abuja, against the Biblical reprieve that “Neither do I condemn you [to instant death]; go and sin no more”, which Jesus Christ gave the woman caught in adultery in John 8:11 (NKJV).
Oshiomhole empowers the hangman
On July 23, 2013, Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, ostensibly motivated by that speech, signed the execution of four condemned criminals who had been on death row for more than 16 years.
Chima Ejiofor, Daniel Nsofor, Osarenmwinda Aigbonkhan, and Richard Igagu were sent to the gallows. They had been convicted between 1997 and 1998 for armed robbery, murder, and rape, and had hoped their death sentences would be converted to life imprisonment.
Justifying the decision, Oshiomhole said the non-execution of convicted criminals for about two decades is responsible for the high rate of violent crimes, and pledged to sign the death warrant of convicts, especially kidnappers who kill their victims.
“There are seven convicts whose cases are being reviewed. I will sign the death warrant of any of them, especially kidnappers, found to have killed any of their victims.
“I believe those who kill by the sword should also die by the sword,” he argued.
While Oshiomhole is willing, and has actually demonstrated his resolve to send condemned criminals to the gallows, many other governors are reluctant.
A report by Amnesty International in 2012 on death sentences and executions said about 1,000 convicts were awaiting execution in Nigeria, spanning several years.
Days of firing squad
Forms of capital punishment include hanging, beheading, lethal injection, and firing squad.
Nigeria introduced the firing squad in 1970 during the regime of former military Head of State, Yakubu Gowon. Convicts were tied to drums filled with sand and shot after military and religious rituals.
Several criminals, including Oyenusi, Folorunsho, Lawrence Anini, Monday Osunbor, Buraimoh Jimoh, ‘Mighty Joe’, ‘Captain Blood’ and George Iyamu (a former Deputy Superintendent of Police who was Anini’s collaborator) have been publicly shot since then.
People trooped out to watch these executions. It seemed like entertainment of sorts.
One of the most memorable was that of Oyenusi and his gang who were shot at the Lagos Bar Beach on September 8, 1971. It was a huge spectacle because Oyenusi had terrorised the populace with joy. He smiled when he was tied to the stakes.
Crime, still on the increase
Nigeria is home to all sorts of criminal activities – drug and human trafficking, armed robbery, terrorism, murder, political corruption, and so on. Over the years, crime has escalated. A clinical sociologist, Ebongabasi Ekpe-Juda, believes that a lack of employment and overpopulation are responsible for the soaring crime rate.
Argument against death penalty
Amnesty International describes death penalty as “the ultimate denial of human rights”.
The view is shared by Funmi Falana, a lawyer and human rights activist in Lagos, who argues that “if capital punishment is allowed, there is no way it will be carried out without involving torture.
“Whether you axe a man, or shoot or hang him by the neck until he dies, whatever way it is done, it amounts to torture.”
An eye for an eye
Some believe that crimes such as homicide, terrorism, genocide, and child killing are unpardonable because lives are taken; therefore, life sentence is insufficient punishment.
Abdulazeez Ibrahim, a lawyer based in Kaduna, insisted that “the state cannot just kill anyone; you must have done something wrong. It is our law saying you cannot take a life without yours being taken.”
To him, the nature of a crime determines if capital punishment applies.
“What I do not like is jungle justice. But when an offender is tried at the law court, then that is right. What I do not support is killing someone without justification,” added Emmanuel Nwakocha, a civil servant.
Falana, however, argued that life sentence, as against death sentence, will achieve the same purpose. “I want to believe that giving life sentence should be enough punishment for such and I also believe that life sentence will discourage people from committing such offences in the future.”
Religious views
There is a lot of controversy about capital punish from the religious angle, as Christians, Islamists, Buddhists, and others hold different views on the subject.
Some Islamic clerics support capital punishment for some crimes; others are against it wholly. Supporters base their conviction on the Qur’an, which forms the basis of the Sharia law.
Some Christians cite the Old Testament of The Bible to support death penalty, but others believe that the New Testament abolishes it.
The Qur’an
Sura 5, ayat 33 in the Qur’an says: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.”
Sharia law was introduced in Zamfara State in 2000. Wikipedia records that a number of Muslims were sentenced to death but the executions were not carried out due to the intervention of human rights bodies and activists.
On March 22, 2002, Amina Kurami was sentenced to death by stoning by a Sharia Court for adultery and conceiving a child out of wedlock.
Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, a non governmental organisation (NGO), took up the case and her conviction was overturned.
Another woman, Safiya Hussaini, who was condemned to death by stoning, was also freed of all charges after a retrial.
The Bible
The Old Testament instituted death penalty for some category of sins (crimes). However, the New Testament preaches against it because this is the dispensation of grace, not revenge. “To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:29 NKJV).
Old Testament: “He that kills any man shall surely be put to death. And he that kills an animal shall make it good; animal for animal. And if a man causes a disfigurement in his neighbor; as he has done, so shall it be done to him; Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he has caused a disfigurement in a man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that kills an animal, he shall restore it: and he that kills a man, he shall be put to death” (Leviticus 24:17-21 KJV2000).
New Testament: “You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That you resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also” (Matthew 5:38-40 KJV2000).
Old Testament: “The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10 NKJV). “You shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones” (Deuteronomy 22:24 NKJV).
New Testament: When a woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus Christ, her accusers reiterated that the Old Testament law demanded that she be stoned to death. Jesus Christ told them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first” (John 8:7 NKJV).
He stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger. All the accusers went away, one by one.
“When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more’” (John 8:10-11 NKJV).
In the Old Testament, the sin of adultery attracted immediate capital punishment for both the man and the woman, without room for repentance and forgiveness.
In the New Testament, however, Jesus Christ saw that the woman caught in adultery repented in her heart and told her to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11 NKJV).
By this, Jesus Christ abolishes instant capital punishment in New Testament, giving sinners (or criminals in civil society) the opportunity to repent in this dispensation of grace.
What it means is that, in the New Testament, someone who commits crime deserving the death penalty is to be tried in the court of law and sent to jail, “the cities of refuge” (Numbers 35:11-28 NKJV), to repent.
If a sinner or criminal does not repent in prison, or after serving out a jail term (exhausting the grace period), he or she will still face the death penalty in the end and go to hell, but it will be through a natural death, not one effected by fellow man.
The Old Testament law repaid evil for evil. But the New Testament says, “See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men” (1 Thessalonians 5:15 KJV2000). “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse …. Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:14, 17 NKJV).
Rev. Father Emmanuel Idoko, Parish Priest of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Lagos, said: “The death sentence is not acceptable in the world generally, except in some Islamic countries. I believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
“When the woman caught in the very act of adultery was about to be stoned, Jesus Christ asked that if there was anybody who was not guilty, he or she should cast the first stone at her.
“Of course we know what happened. So, with that, capital punishment should not be the answer to evil in the world.”
Banning capital punishment
National and international bodies have advocated a global ban on capital punishment. Falana maintained that “most of the criminals become recidivists, some of them go out and become more vicious because they know that if they are caught, the end is death. So they are usually vicious and wicked and brutal.”
There is also the moral issue of hanging the innocent when a wrongly convicted person is sentenced to death.
Way forward
Amnesty International says there are over 1,000 convicts on death row in Nigeria. Only a few have had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
In Idoko’s view, ‘an eye for an eye’ does not solve crime. “The Bible tells us that an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, does not, in any way, correct morals.
“I think people are touched more when they discover that retaliation does not help in changing a person. Reprisals never help, they only heighten issues.”
He suggested other forms of punishment like life imprisonment and community service.
A psychologist, Chiegboka Patricia, said an effective prison system will help reduce crime. “The main reason why about 80 per cent of criminals in Nigeria always go back to prison is because they are inadequately attended to.
“Our prisons should act as correctional homes instead of acting only as punitive homes.”
