Inter Press Services

NIGERIA: EU Urges Nigeria to Drop Capital Punishment

European Union is urging Nigeria to drop capital punishment and seek humane ways of tackling armed robbery, military coups and murder.

But Nigerians are worried that if capital punishment was banned, as being advocated by the European parliament, vulnerable people, who are often the target of armed robbers, would have sleepless nights.

"I would like the laws retained. Without it, more people would join criminal activities. In fact, the death penalty has scared people who would have become armed robbers," says Williams Okechukwu, a businessperson in Lagos. Marco Cappato, a member of the European parliament, visited the capital Abuja last week to solicit Nigeria's support on international ban on capital punishment.

President Olusegun Obasanjo told him that, while he supported the ban, debate was required on the issue. "Personally, I will have nothing to do with death penalty. I have been a victim of injustice and would have been killed," he said, referring to his detention by the late Sani Abacha, Nigeria's military ruler.

Under Abacha, who ruled Nigeria between 1993 and 1999, perceived political opponents were arrested, tried and sentenced to death, some on trump-up charges.

Obasanjo, who was detained for allegedly plotting to overthrow Abacha, was freed after the dictator's death in 1999.

Capital punishment remains an emotive subject in Nigeria. Bolaji Olatoye, a Lagos banker, feels that the punishment should be extended to include officials who corruptly enrich themselves, if Obasanjo's crusade against corruption must work.

"In China, for example, official corruption attracts death penalty but in Nigeria corrupt people go free," he says.

More than 3,000 executions - out of over 4,000 worldwide - took place in China last year, according to the Italian group, Hands on Cain.

African countries carried out 63 executions, the vast majority of them - 40 executions - in Sudan, it says. In Nigeria, police statistics show that 270 cases of armed robbery took place in Lagos alone, between 2001 and 2002. During that period, 701 armed robbers were arrested and 544 others were killed by security forces during exchanges of fire between them and law enforcement officers.

69 soldiers and 104 civilians also lost their lives.

During the same period, police recovered 7,907 guns and ammunitions, and 3,106 vehicles out of the 4,451 stolen in Lagos.

Since January, 58 armed robbers have been shot dead in Lagos. In return, 3 police officers and six civilians have been gunned down by armed robbers.

In an atmosphere of hatred against armed robbers few voices like Reverend Moses Shodiya's continue to be heard; suggesting long-jail terms and reformation for the criminals.

"The Bible says you did not create life so you must never take other people's life. Persons who commit violent crimes should not be killed but put in jail for a long time for him to repent. If you kill them, they would not have learnt anything. We have seen some armed robbers who were pardoned after spending years in prison coming out to become evangelists and pastors, winning souls for Jesus," Shodiya says.

"All we need is reform our prisons in order to be able to reform our prisoners. Death sentence is not the answer to crimes but good governance and provision of employment to the majority of our people are," he says. Around 70 percent of Nigeria's population lives below the poverty line of 1 U.S. dollar a day, according to official statistics.

Former military ruler General Muhammadu Buhari, who ruled Nigeria between 1983 and 1985, prescribed the death penalty for drug traffickers. "The killing of 3 drug pushers during that period sent drug barons in Nigeria into hiding. But when that law was cancelled by President Ibrahim Babangida upon assuming power, many Nigerians went into that business. See what we have in our hands today," says Okechukwu.

Like others, Okechukwu is selective about his choice of laws. "The only area I will want the death penalty expunged is the death by stoning or chopping off limbs for adultery or minor offences as contained in the Islamic legal system, the Shariah," he says.

Shariah is practiced in northern Nigeria, where the majority of the population is Muslim.

Much of the hatred against the armed robbers has been caused by the criminals themselves. Carol Adebola, a school teacher in Lagos, lost 2 relations two years ago, shot by armed robbers. "Nigeria's case is different from that of other countries where robbers only threaten and hardly shoot people to dispossess them of their property," she says.

"In Nigeria, even if a victim cooperates with the robbers, they shoot and kill him and take away his property. These young boys and girls are trigger-happy and do not care about life. Sentencing them to life imprisonment will not deter violent crime," argues Adebola.

Sometimes innocent people also get caught in the system. Innocent bystanders, who happen to be at the scene of armed robbery, are picked up by police and tried for armed robbery. Many of them, who are too poor to afford legal fees, have been executed by hanging.

"Criminals become violent when they know they will get killed if caught. I believe that if the death penalty is abolished, they will be less violent," argues Adeniyi, a resident of Lagos.