Nigeria: HURILAWS and TIP to Govt - Stop Torturing Death Row Inmates

10 October 2023
Vanguard (Lagos)
By Henry Ojelu & Blessing Udensi

Lagos — IN commemoration of the World Day Against Death Penalty, the Human Rights Law Service, HURILAWS, and The Inclusion Project, TIP, yesterday, urged the Federal Government to stop the torture of death row inmates in prisons across the country.

HURILAWS and TIP, in a joint statement, also urged the Federal Government to embark on prison reforms in terms of infrastructure overhaul to improve the living of death row inmates.

HURILAWS' Legal Director, Collins Okeke and TIP's legal director, Pamela Okoroigwe noted that most of the death row inmates are daily subjected to torture by prison authorities and called on the government to consider signing into law a death penalty moratorium law.

The statement reads: "According to data made available by the Nigerian Correctional Service, 3,298 persons are known to be under the sentence of death in Nigeria as of April 2023.

For many of these death row prisoners, conditions are traumatic, harsh, and dehumanizing. Most death row cells are 7 by 8 feet, shared by three to five people, the cells are dark and with hardly any ventilation.

Prisoners use buckets as toilets and sleep on the bare floor. The average period spent on death row by prison inmates in Nigeria is between 10-15 years. Many death row prisoners have developed mental illness during their long stay in prison and on death row.

"Several courts in Nigeria have held that a convict on death row is entitled to the right to dignity of the human person and so should not be subjected to torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment arising from a prolonged delay in executing him. HURILAWS and TIP are of the view that since the death sentence passed on convicts is never carried out and will never be carried out; there is no more constitutional justification for the Sentence of Death.

Instead, an official moratorium should be put in place.

"HURILAWS also calls on federal and state governments in Nigeria to stop torturing and traumatizing death row inmates by either abolishing the death penalty or signing into law a death penalty moratorium law."

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