Monday
April 26, 2010 |
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Last week, whilst reading an essay and
half-listening to the AIT’s news broadcast on my computer, I was so
startled by an item in the broadcast that I dropped the essay and
focused on the news. The startling news that compelled my attention was
this: that, as a means of decongesting the prisons, Nigerian governors
wanted to expedite the execution of condemned criminals.
I looked up in time to see Governor Theodore Orji of Abia speaking to
reporters on the issue.
I wanted to write down Mr. Orji’s exact words, but couldn’t find a pen
quickly enough. But the next day, the Tribune reported on the matter. In
the words of the paper, “The National Economic Council (NEC), presided
over by the Acting President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, on Monday, resolved
that all condemned criminals should be executed, as the government
explored ways to decongest the nation’s prisons.” It continued:
“Briefing State House correspondents on the decision of the council
after the meeting, Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State revealed that
the council was faced with the problem of those who had been condemned
to death but were still kept in jail because the authorities had not
mustered the courage to execute them. He said even though the state
governors were not the ones to initiate the execution process, they were
willing to obey the order by actually executing those found guilty of
serious offences.”
Then the paper quoted the governor’s exact words: “The council was faced
with the problem of those who committed capital offences and have been
condemned to death, but are still living because perhaps the authorities
have not mustered the courage to execute them and in considering that
the governors were seen as not been very responsible for that, because
the thing has to be initiated from the prison itself. It is when the
recommendation comes to the governor that it can be implemented.” Mr.
Orji then affirmed that “the governors are willing to
obey this order by actually executing those who have been found guilty
of crimes of murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, among others.”
The council, Governor Orji revealed, also “considered the people who are
in detention.” He disclosed that “80 per cent of those who were in
detention were awaiting trials and it was decided that efforts should be
made to ensure that the prisons were decongested by looking into the
cases of those people who are awaiting trials.” In a rare display of
humane concern, the governor stated that “there is no basis for somebody
who has not been convicted to be in prison for 10 years. So, the proper
thing is to decongest the prison by looking at these cases and leaving
them to go.”
Put quite simply, the governors’ prescription on executions struck me as
crude, coarse and hypocritical. It amazed me that Nigerian governors
would, without a sense of irony or shame, push for quickening the pace
of executions of any criminals. For, truth be told, many serving and
former governors as well as other government officials, are the nation’s
biggest criminals. So, if governors must visit the subject of hastened
executions, why didn’t they spend some time
to create a protocol for executing those of their number who act as
criminals-in-chief in their respective states?
Why not, indeed?
Two weeks ago, I commented on a sobering report by the Washington,
DC-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) on the phenomenon of illicit
fund transfers by African leaders. The report revealed that African
nations, led by Nigeria, illegally exported – and this was a
conservative estimate – close to one trillion dollars between 1970 and
2008. Nigerians – those who are defined as “stakeholders” – led the way
with $240.7 billion.
My question to Nigerian governors and other government officials: Who
will execute you when you steal your people blind? Who will tie you to
the stakes for exporting Nigeria’s cash to foreign banks and importing
misery to your land? Pray, where’s your own executioner?
The timing of the governors’ statement on executions was intriguing. As
I write, former Governor James Ibori of Delta is in hiding – perhaps in
the deltaic creeks or even in a foreign country. Mr. Ibori is dead set
against submitting himself to the EFCC. Ibori is once again being
investigated for alleged acts of corruption and money laundering during
the eight years he presided as governor.
How about the Halliburton bribe scandal that the Nigerian government
appears determined to keep concealed? Several online and print media
have reported that the names of four or five former presidents are on
the list of Nigerians who took bribes to funnel contracts to
Halliburton. Why didn’t the governors demand that the government
prosecute these economic saboteurs and herd them off to jail for the
rest of their lives – or execute them? Too many Nigerian public
officials – presidents, governors, ministers, and local government
councilors – are guilty of setting the tone of misery in their homeland.
They gut the public treasury and cart away billions of dollars in looted
funds to foreign banks. These official thieves create grave economic
hopelessness, low wages, and serious unemployment. Their actions
generate and fertilize such crimes as armed robbery and 419 scams.
That Nigeria has a prison congestion crisis is well known. Prisoners and
detainees are kept in overcrowded prisons, whose conditions are fetid.
There are, of course, many men and women who have been properly
convicted. Sadly, there’s a scandal as well – that many detainees and
convicts are innocent of any crimes. There are, simply, too many victims
of a corrupt system tailored to perpetually incarcerate indigent
suspects or to convict those who cannot afford
to bribe law enforcement or to hire good lawyers.
Governor Orji and his fellow governors must know about this horrible
fact of Nigeria’s penal system. They must know that many convicts,
including those on death row, are absolutely innocent.
The answer to prison congestion, then, is not to go on a spree of
execution. Instead, Nigeria should – in the short term – embark on an
audit of its prison population to separate those who are there for
provable crimes from those pulled in by corrupt police officers as well
as serious lapses in the judicial system. In the long run, the nation
should get serious about cracking down on the real villains – public
officials, including governors – whose thieving expertise breeds other
crimes. Until governors, serving and former, as well as other top
officials are held to account for their unconscionable crimes, until
their crimes are properly defined as capital in nature, Nigeria should
not be in a hurry to start an execution bonanza.
