CLO Wants Death Penalty Abolished

July 7, 2002

Yemi Akinsuyi - Lagos - Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO) has called on the Federal Government to abolish the death penalty and fashion a legislation that would protect and safeguard lives in accordance with acceptable international norms.

A statement by the group's head of campaign, Mr. Ugochukwu Okezie, said little had been achieved through the application of the death penalty as a deterrent over the years.

We therefore request that the Federal Government takes concrete steps to abolish the death penalty in Nigeria and expunge it from our statute books. The National Assembly should, as a matter of urgency, legislate against the death penalty as a form of punishment and fashion a legislation that will protect and safeguard lives in accordance with acceptable international norms.

 "Lastly, there should be a total overhaul of Nigeria's criminal justice system with a view to creating a systematic and humane justice system".

 Citing the Supreme Court's recent confirmation of the death sentence on Godwin Anyanwu for the murder of his brother, Mr. Thomas Aliri on October 17, 1982, the group said: "As widely reported in the national dailies, the accused had engaged his brother in a fight over the ownership of a bicycle carriage costing N3,00, 20 years ago, which resulted in the death of his brother. According to the accused, his intention was not to kill hi brother but purely accident.

 "Be that it may, CLO insists that the death penalty as a form of punishment is inhuman and antithetical to the quest to protect and preserve human lives as expressed in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and other international human rights instruments, which Nigeria is signatory to, particularly in a case that could pass for manslaughter or second degree murder".

 The group, which had expected that the Supreme Court would take pro-active steps in the campaign against the death penalty and its subsequent abolition in Nigeria in line with other nations of the world, which had jettisoned the death penalty as a form of punishment, would by so doing guarantee right to life and dignity of the human person.