LEDAP Kicks against death penalty

*As man, 56, who has been on death row for 24 years is found not guilty

Olatunji

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To mark the World Day Against the use of the Death Penalty, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), in collaboration with the Nigerian Death Penalty Group (NDEPELG) appeals to the Nigerian government to put a stop to the use of death penalty.

According to LEDAP, National Cordinator, Chino Edmund Obiagwu, LEDAP’s position on death penalty is premised on high statistical data of wrongful convictions and sentences of innocent persons to death in Nigeria and around the world.

The statistics  from the Nigerian law reports on death penalty cases compiled by LEDAP from 2006-2011, shows that 39% of death sentences by trial courts were quashed on appeal with the period, indicating a high risk of wrongful convictions and sentences.

A total number of 113 death sentences passed by the various divisions of high courts of state were appealed between 2006 to 2011.

Obiagwu added: “Analysis shows that 69 out of the 113 appeal cases got to Supreme Court, while 44 rested with the various divisions of Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court quashed 26 out of the 69 appeals that got before it, while confirming 43 of them. While the Court of Appeal on the other hand quashed the death sentences of 22 out of the 44 appeal cases that got before it.”

LEDAP’s campaign for the abolition of the death penalty is also borne out of the conviction that the Nigerian government cannot continue to ignore the dire need for reform of the Nigerian Criminal Justice System, which is very weak.

The weak judicial system was manifested in the person of Olatunji Olaide, a former death row prisoner, following the appeal filed by LEDAP on his behalf.

Olaide was arrested on May 29, 1988 on allegations of stealing and murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death by a High Court in 1995, even though he screamed to high heavens that he was innocent, nobody paid him any attention.

After 24 years, it was discovered; due to LEDAP appeal that Olatunji was innocent. 

He was 32-year-old, when he was thrown into the death row, now 56. He is old, frail looking and nursing a blind left eye, which he got from prison.

One of the lawyers of LEDAP, Mr. Vitalis said that Olatunji would have been killed since, if only the government had found the perfect executioner. It would have amounted to shedding the death of an innocent man. “Since the judicial system is weak, giving room for mistakes, it is better to sentence a person to life imprisonment, than death,” added Vitalis.

As of July 2011, 924 persons have been sentenced to death and are waiting to be executed in Nigeria.

Eight among them are women. Those waiting execution are being held in death row cells in Maximum security prisons at Kirikiri, Lagos. Enugu, Jos, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Warri and Ibara (Abeokuta).