Bauchi SBauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed lately restoked the age-long debate about the applicability of the death penalty. He said he would soon begin to sign death warrants of condemned criminals in his state because the number outstanding has become bloated; besides, justice needs to be taken to a logical conclusion.

The essence of justice, obviously, is for it to be served. And the whole purpose of litigation through the courts is for justice to be delivered to offenders, so to assuage or appease offended persons. For whatever reason this is so, Nigeria retains the death penalty in her statute books. But the penalty has become justice in pendency because the courts keep handing down the sentence to convicted offenders, whereas state governors who have the statutory mandate to give effect to the warrants refrain from doing so. This has left the death row in the country bloated – now estimated at more than 2,000 condemned persons nationwide.

Speaking while signing the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) bill and another bill for establishment of the Bauchi State Penal Code, 2022 into law, Mohammed explained why state governors were reluctant to sign death warrants and served notice of his own readiness to sign. “We will soon be signing some death sentences because there are many, and because justice has to be taken to a logical conclusion,” he was reported saying, adding: “I know some governors are running away from signing the death sentences because they exercise restraint on the basis that there may be some element of error. But for me, I will leave it to my lord (the judge)… It’s not my fault. If it is brought to my attention, I will do it.”

The governor spoke against the backdrop of a statement by his Kano State counterpart, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, who vowed to sign the death warrant of a convicted killer of five-year-old Hanifa Abubakar in the state. A high court in Kano had in July sentenced to death Abdulmalik Tanko, a school proprietor who confessed abducting and killing Hanifa, who was a pupil in his school. It is not certain if the convict has appealed the high court verdict.

Under Nigeria’s law, death sentences handed down by the courts must be signed off by state governors, who also have the prerogative of mercy, before such can be effected. For years on end, however, governors have refrained from signing death warrants. Besides exercising restraint owing to the possibility of miscarriage of justice, as explained by Mohammed, the governors are also obviously concerned for their political image. The death sentence has always been opposed by civil society actors and international human rights watchdogs, who would readily upbraid any governor who signs off on a death penalty warrant. When former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole signed the death warrants of some condemned prisoners in 2013, he faced a backlash of criticisms by such interest. So did his successor, Governor Godwin Obaseki, when he signed the death warrants of three condemned prisoners in December 2016 after being newly sworn in.

But neither are the governors exercising their prerogative of mercy to commute death sentences, thereby leaving condemned persons on a ballooning death row and increasingly congested prison facilities. Last July, Minister of Interior Rauf Aregbesola had to call on governors to sign death warrants in order to decongest the prisons. Civil society actors, however, disagreed with the minister, saying the death penalty should be replaced with long-term imprisonment. In the past, civil society actors argued that the death penalty undermines human dignity and is not even a deterrence to perpetration of crime. “If two-thirds of countries have abolished the death penalty why should Nigeria be applying it, especially in a country where innocent people may be easily executed due to inherent challenges in the administration of the criminal justice system,” Director of Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Idayat Hassan, once said.

There is nothing more harrowing than waiting endlessly for the hangman, hence life on the death row is by itself human rights abuse. If the Nigerian justice system is uncomfortable with the death penalty, the laws should be reworked without delay to knock it out so that not only offenders know what they are due for, also offended persons know the score on which to find closure. If, however, the penalty would be retained in our statute books, governors should sign death warrants so that justice is taken to a logical conclusion – for both the offender and the offended. The present scenario of justice in pendency is unjust to everyone.