The death penalty remains a controversial subject matter globally. Many countries around the world continue to mete out this ancient form of punishment to persons convicted by the court as criminals. However, the United Nations and many human rights organisations worldwide have embarked on an elongated campaign against the sustained usage of this punishment and called for its abolition worldwide. According to the critics of the death penalty, the punishment is inhumane, violates human rights, particularly the right to life of individuals, and does not reflect the modern world that over seven billion individuals currently live in. But supporters of the punishment insist that it should be retained, especially for severe crimes committed by convicted persons, to serve as a lesson to the public. So, what is the death penalty? How many countries still use it as a form of punishment? Is the death penalty used in Nigeria? What do the country’s laws say about this form of punishment?
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The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is the practice of killing a person or group of people as punishment for committing heinous crimes, having been convicted by the courts. The Black’s Law Dictionary defines it as a “judgment of blood”. It results in the untimely termination of a person’s life after the judgement of the court is executed. It is only a legitimate authority (country and states/regions) that can carry out the death penalty by implementing an order issued by a competent court of law or tribunal. That is why it is often defined as “the legally authorised killing of someone as punishment for a crime”. An execution is an act of implementing the sentence issued by the court. The history of the death penalty can be traced to ancient times, with Draco (from which the modern word “draconian” is derived), the first recorded legislator in ancient Greece, who introduced the harsh punishment for a variety of crimes in the Athenian legal system in 621 BCE. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, considered to be one of the most influential scholars the world has ever had, supported the punishment but insisted in his treatise, The Laws, that the death penalty should be “a last resort”. The sentence of the death penalty is issued by the courts across the world for crimes deemed to be capital offences. These offences include crimes against individuals such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape, terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. ALSO READ: Causes and solutions to one chance in Nigeria Crimes against the state, such as attempting to overthrow the government (coup d’état), treason, espionage, sedition, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, drug dealing, and drug possession, are also punishable by death in many countries. The death penalty is executed through the following methods: hanging, execution by firing squad, beheading, crucifixion, stoning, lethal injection, electrocution, or use of the gas chamber. The death penalty is used by countries to serve as deterrence for serious crimes (as mentioned above) and to incapacitate offenders of these crimes. In many countries, death sentences are not carried out immediately after they are imposed. There is often a long period of uncertainty as the convicted persons appeal against their sentence at the higher divisions of the judiciary. Inmates awaiting execution live on what has been called “ death row”. A total of 55 countries, including Nigeria, retain the death penalty to this day, 109 countries have completely abolished it, seven countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes but maintain it for special circumstances such as war crimes, and 24 have abolished the practice (but remains ingrained in their law books).
As mentioned previously, Nigeria is one of the countries that still retain the death penalty as a form of punishment for stipulated crimes committed and adjudged to have been so by the courts. The history of the death penalty in Nigeria can be traced to pre-colonial times when the then various independent tribal nations implemented their rules and regulations, often known as customary laws, which prescribed this punishment as the consequence of offences such as murder, sexual misconduct (especially adultery), stealing and disrespecting the gods among others. In Nigeria, the death penalty is meted out to people convicted by the courts of having committed capital offences such as murder, terrorism-related offences, robbery, kidnapping, assisting the suicide of a person legally unable to consent or perjury in a capital case in court that leads to wrongful execution. Other offences include sodomy, blasphemy, treason, treachery, mutiny, assisting the enemy in invading the country, and witchcraft. 
The aforementioned offences vary across regions, and there are exceptions to these developments. More on this later. The methods of executing the death penalty in the country are primarily hanging, shooting by firing squad, and lethal injection. ALSO READ: Criminal gangs that have terrorized Nigeria over the last 5 decades The Nigerian state publicly used the death penalty as a form of punishment between 1966 to 1979 and 1983 to 1998. It has also been implemented since the country’s return to a democratic state in 1999, with civilians and military personnel executed, following the decision of the court. As recently as 20 May 2022, a Lagos High Court sitting at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) convicted and sentenced Peter Nielsen, a Danish national, to death for the murder of his Nigerian wife and their young daughter in 2018; and an Akwa Ibom High Court on 4 August 2022 sentenced Uduak Akpan to death by hanging for the murder of the late Iniubong Umoren. 
As of 2021, a total of 3,036 inmates on death row are locked up across various prisons – or correctional facilities as it is legally known in Nigeria – across the country.
The death penalty is enshrined in Nigerian laws and it is, therefore, legal. The highest law in the country, the 1999 constitution (as amended) recognises execution as a form of legal punishment. Specifically, Section 33(1) states:
Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.
Also, the Criminal Code Act LFN (Laws of the Federation of Nigeria), 2004, (majorly operational in Southern Nigeria stipulates that the death penalty is a form of punishment under Nigerian law. Section 3 of the Criminal Code defines a felony as:
Any offence which is declared by law to be a felony, or is punishable, without proof of previous conviction, with death or with imprisonment for three years or more.Section 17 of the same act solidifies the usage of the punishment, stating:
Subject to the provisions of any other written law, the punishments which may be inflicted under this Code are death, imprisonment, caning, fine and forfeiture.
In the same vein, the Penal Code Act LFN, 2004, prescribes the death penalty for certain crimes. Similarly, Section 1(2) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act, 2004, specifies the death penalty as the punishment for armed robbery. ALSO READ: Causes, effects and how to stop female genital mutilation Likewise, sections 45(1) and (2), 46(2), 47(3), 52(1), 106, 107(2), 114(3), and 119 of the Armed Forces Act Cap A20 LFN, 2004, prescribes the death penalty for a variety of offences. In addition, the Sharia Penal Code, applicable in 12 northern states, imposes capital punishment for various offences. Furthermore, some states, in furtherance of the power allocated to them to create laws, have enacted the death penalty as a punishment for crimes such as kidnapping. Various sections of the aforementioned laws mention the death penalty for the following offences: capital offences such as murder, terrorism-related offences, robbery, kidnapping, assisting the suicide of a person legally unable to consent, perjury in a capital case in court that leads to wrongful execution, treason, treachery, mutiny and assisting the enemy in invading the country. Another offence that has the death penalty attached to it is blasphemy. After the courts or tribunals (court-martials) have issued an execution order, the President (concerning federal laws and military laws) or the Governor (concerning state legislations) must sign the order before the execution is carried out.
Pregnant women are spared the ignominy of capital punishment in line with Section 33 of the 1999 constitution, which stipulates that nobody shall be deprived intentionally of his or her life. The life referred to here is the unborn child. The unborn child is believed to be innocent and should, therefore, not suffer the consequence of his or her mother’s action. The pregnant woman is, therefore, sentenced to or has her sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Alongside pregnant women, nursing mothers are also shielded from capital punishment. Sections 221(2) and (3) of the Child Rights Act prescribe an alternative punishment commensurate with the crime committed to be meted out to the convicted woman. ALSO READ: Biafra agitation: History, causes and why Nigeria won’t let S/East leave
Whenever a male person who, in the opinion of the court, has not attained seventeen years of age, has been found guilty of any offence the court may, in its discretion, order him to be caned in addition to or in substitution for any other punishments to which he is liable.Also, Section 368(3) of the Criminal Procedure Act states that:
Where an offender who in the opinion of the court had not attained the age of seventeen years at the time the offence was committed is found guilty of a capital offence, sentence of death shall not be pronounced or recorded, but in lieu thereof, the court shall order such person to be detained during the pleasure of the President and if so ordered he shall be detained in accordance with the provisions of Part 44 of this Act notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any written law.
Section 28 of the Criminal Code specifies that a person cannot be held liable for an act or any omission if he or she suffered mental disease or natural mental infirmity, which deprived such a person to understand the gravity of the decision made or the ability to control his or her action(s).
As earlier mentioned, executions in Nigeria date back to pre-colonial and colonial times. The earliest record of executions in the colonial era was in 1949 when Oba Samuel Adeniran Asusumasa Atewogboye II, the 43rd Alaaye of Efon-Alaaye, situated in present-day Ekiti State; Enoch Falayi, a herbalist; Gabriel Olabirinjo and one of the monarch’s servants were all hanged to death for the murder of a 15-month-old girl for ritual. It is, however, unknown if the execution was publicly done. The first publicly known execution in the country’s history was the execution of Babatunde Folorunsho, a highway robber, alongside Joseph Ilobo and Williams Alders Oyazimo, a sub-lieutenant in the Nigerian Navy, for armed robbery. The trio was executed by firing squad before hundreds of people at the famous Bar Beach (now Eko Atlantic) in Lagos in July 1971. On 29 March 1987, Lawrence Anini, the dreaded armed robber, was executed by firing squad alongside members of his gang, who had terrorised Edo State, particularly Benin City, the state capital. In July 1995, 43 convicted armed robbers were executed by firing squad in batches for Kirikiri Maximum Prison, Lagos. On 10 November 1995, Kenule “Ken” Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists, who became known as the Ogoni Nine, were executed for allegedly inciting the death of the Ogoni Four, beaten to death by angry Ogoni youths on 21 May 1994 over the latter group’s conservative stance on the state of the Niger Delta. After Auwalu Musa and Kenneth Ekhone, two men convicted by a robbery and firearms tribunal, were executed in 2006, there was a moratorium until 24 June 2013, when four prisoners on death row – Chima Ejiofor, Daniel Nsofor, Osarenmwinda Aiguokhan and Richard Igagu – were hanged to death in Benin City. It is left to be seen if the death sentences recently pronounced by various courts of law will be executed. ALSO READ: How electoral fraud occurs and its consequences in Nigeria
Gabriel is a trained political scientist, and a qualified and versatile communications professional who has worked as a journalist and Public Relations executive. He has a knack for content creation and development and is a keen digital native interested in all things good.
