Edo Hanging Row

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan on Fathers’ Day, June 16, had a unique message for Governors – sign the death warrants of those on death row. Eight days after Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State approved execution of four death row convicts; his intention preceded the President’s message.

Oshiomhole’s action sparked off outrage from the human rights community, particularly Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which had campaigned against the hangings. They view execution of condemned felons as “barbaric” and a violation of human dignity.

The concerns could be consigned to meddlesomeness, knowing that their non-barbaric countries, still execute some classes of criminals. There are areas of human rights that should bother these organisations. Did the suspects have access to fair trials? What is the penalty for their offences? We think their interventions at such levels could make a difference to the suspects’ cases.

Noise about death sentences, abolished in some countries, tends to ignore the rights of the victims and their families, who in these cases lost lives. ‘We are firmly on the side of the innocent members of the law-abiding public whose right to life and the achievement of the loftiest potentials under the law were savagely terminated by deviants.

The law mandates the state to ensure justice is done to all, including the suspects. The quest for justice saw them through the appeal processes, and the verdict was still death.

The brazen brutality and barbarism involved in some of the cases are too nauseating to be repeated here. No decent society would tolerate them. When a citizen, for whatever reason, takes the law into his hands, terminating the life of another, the state has a duty to bring the offender to appropriate justice.

This will not only reassure the victims’ families that the law “will fight” for them (and thus prevent the urge for vengeance) it will also help to deter those who might contemplate brutal behaviours.

Our concerns centre more on the law enforcement mechanisms being robust enough to ensure that all cases, especially those warranting capital punishment, are diligently prosecuted, with the rights of the accused protected and their appeals exhausted. The finality of death sentences demands irrefutable evidences in reaching the decisions.

Governors should review each death row case on its merit. Where necessary they should apply the prerogative of mercy and possibly commute sentences to other forms of penalty, where doubts or extenuating circumstances arise.

Otherwise, once the brutality of offence is established by law, there should be no hesitation in allowing the law to take its due course.

Neither law nor nature permits brutality on the death row; leaving convicts, unattended, for years is also barbaric and inhuman.