'Secret executions' blighting Nigeria
Amnesty International UK condemns capital punishment in Nigeria amid claims death row prisoners being executed in secret
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Tuesday, 21, Oct 2008 10:49
The Nigerian authorities have been condemned for executing death row prisoners in secret and forcing inmates to clean gallows after hangings have taken place.
Prisoners on death row are forced to watch executions from their cells, appeals can take up to 24 years to be heard and inmates as young as 13 at the time of their offence have been executed, a report said today.
Amnesty International UK, which is responsible for the report, said the majority of confessions in death penalty trials were extracted under torture, with police – under pressure from high crime rates - frequently arresting close relatives of victims or witnesses.
At a press conference in Abuja, the human rights group said the Nigerian justice system was riddled with "corruption, negligence and a nearly criminal lack of resources".
"It is truly horrifying to think of how many innocent people may have been executed and may still be executed," said Amnesty International Nigeria researcher Aster van Kregten.
"The police are overstretched and under-resourced. Because of this, they rely heavily on confessions to 'solve' crimes – rather than on expensive investigations. Convictions based on such confessions are obviously very unsafe."
Both Amnesty International and Nigerian legal organisation LEDAP – which co-authored the report – are demanding a moratorium on executions in the country, the most populous in Africa.
Chino Obiagwu, LEDAP's national coordinator, explained that under Nigerian law, confessions gained through torture were not admissible in court.
"Judges know that there is widespread torture by the police – and yet they continue to sentence suspects to death based on these confessions, leading to many possibly innocent people being sentenced to death," he said.
Death row inmate Jafar was in his early 30s when he was sentenced to death. Twenty-four years later, the 57-year-old is still waiting for his appeal to be heard amid claims his papers have been lost.
"I am not an armed robber. I am a shoemaker. I bought a [motorcycle] from someone who stole it," he told Amnesty International. "The police asked me to be a witness. They got the man who sold [me] the [motorcycle] but shot him to death. After that, I became the suspect."
Nigeria, which has not reported any executions since 2002, reportedly has 725 male and 11 female death row prisoners, with one in ten spending the last 20 years on death row.
One-hundred and thirty-seven out of 192 United Nations member states have abolished the death penalty, with Nigeria one of only seven Africa Union states to have executed anyone since 2007.