The Edo 4 and the Scent of Hypocrisy

Goodluck Jonathan

In making a call which could very well trigger the return of executions in Nigeria, where is President Jonathan’s moral high-ground? ask Joseph Otteh and Chinelo Chinweze…

On Monday, June 24, 2013, four death row inmates, namely Chima Ejiofor, Daniel Nsofor, Osarenmwinda Aiguokhan and Richard Igagu, were executed by hanging in Benin, Edo State following the signing of their death warrants by the State Governor, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole and the failure of the inmates to secure a reprieve against their execution from the high court which gave its ruling on their lawsuit on that same day. These executions were carried out in total disregard of the Motion for Stay of Execution and the Notice of Appeal filed at the Federal High Court on the inmates’ behalf and reportedly served on the Attorney General of the State and the Prison Authorities.

William Shakespeare reminds us of the floating capacity of “bad” news. The execution of the four inmates was bad news indeed that floated with some odour, not because anyone denies the case against the inmates, but in spite of it. Because the inmates were entitled to the protection of the law until such a time their fates were finally determined and no further reliefs availed them. For a government that asserts it is based on the rule of law to carry out that execution in the circumstance in which it did plumbs the depths of disbelief:  we now see the government hides a lie behind each claim to respect the rule of law.

This may not be a debate about the justification for the death penalty; however, it is axiomatic that implicit in the constitutional guarantee of the right to life is the right to appeal against a sentence of death. This right must be facilitated and accommodated to the fullest extent and opportunities permitted by applicable law.

The President’s “Good Governance” Advice Yields Fruit
The execution of the death sentence must provide this administration with some gratification for setting things in motion in this direction. Recently, President Goodluck Jonathan had chided State Governors for not using the death penalty enough, saying the Governors must not avoid tough decisions placed upon them by virtue of their office! It probably did not matter to President Jonathan that many Nigerians had not had electric power for many consecutive days, but what with that? It was not like the death row prisoners would be dispatched off with electric chairs. No! All the hangman needed was the gallows and it probably did not need any electricity to function.

Yet, Nigeria’s president could do better with more sobriety and reflection on this matter. Not long ago, President Jonathan took the unpopular and widely denounced step of granting the former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who is both a fugitive from justice and a “formerly” (i.e. until the pardon) convicted felon a State pardon. Why does one felon get a State pardon and another the diligent enforcement of the death penalty? Why should one set of felons spend their waiting days in dark dungeons, and another set in presidential palaces? Both sets of persons robbed, and both used instruments available to, or accessible by, them. Robberies by State Governors is possible because of the various kinds of instruments and leverages at their disposition, including state authority, power and armed force. The line is too thin, too blurred and arguably too unprincipled to separate the destinies of both sets of offenders. Many argue that the effects of misappropriating state resources are arguably worse than those of robbing single individuals. For it is likely that one set of robbers probably only stole out of a necessity to survive. But those who get State pardons rob out of what necessity? Because they did not know where their next meals will come from? Is it not the State’s failure to provide Nigerians with decent livelihoods or employment arising from the horrendous stealing of public resources that fuels economic crimes? In making a call which could very well trigger the return of executions in Nigeria, where is President Jonathan’s moral high-ground?  Coming from a President who is quite comfortable consorting with “formerly” convicted robbers, the advice to Governors has quite a bit of the scent of hypocrisy.

We could also say a thing about the use of the death penalty. Many of those on death rows are victims of a flawed justice, economic and social system. The death penalty, we can say, of itself is quite objectionable too, particularly when used in systems that are weak or fraught with error. The death penalty carries social costs no moral society will want to contend with. The risks that a person may be wrongly convicted of a crime he or she has not committed will always remain with society, so long as justice systems are managed by humans who are liable to error. It is tragic to err with human life, and the death penalty is basically about saying that it is okay to take the chance. No, it is not okay to take the chance. Like someone said not long ago, a State which must take life must first give justice.
Human Lives Reduced to Game of Wits

Let’s return to the rule of law realm. Why execute these persons when legal proceedings on their behalf were still subsisting? It needs be stated emphatically that constitutional democracy is not just about privileging one set of felonies and felons over others. It is more about the entrenchment of values which ensure that only the LAW (and nothing else) rules. It is about the supremacy of values which protect any citizen (irrespective of his perceived or actual moral status) from the arbitrary whim of another citizen – especially when the latter is armed with State power like Governor Adams Oshiomole, and of course the Prison Comptroller in Edo State.

At the time of the executions, an appeal, said LEDAP and HURSDEF (civil rights groups prosecuting the case of the inmates), against the execution of the death sentences was pending in the Court of Appeal, Lagos. A motion was also pending in the Federal High Court Benin to stay the execution of the inmates after a ruling dismissing their applications for reprieve. Therefore, while the inmates were putting their fate in the rule of law, the Nigerian State was scheming inordinately and tactically to subvert it. Why carry out executions – and indeed end human life – on the very day a high court ruled on and dismissed a claim of the inmates? Is the Federal High Court the highest court in the land? Would a responsible government not think, for example, that the inmates may want to appeal the high court’s ruling? Why this implacable, unrelenting and ineluctable haste to take out, to terminate human life by the State before even the litigants are notified of the decision of the court? Why treat human life the same way you treat a piece of property in a litigation? Even if no appeal was filed on that day, even if the state was not served with court papers on that day, the government ought to have had some decency, some basic respect for human life to give time for persons who were locked up in maximum prison to decide and make some arrangements to appeal a decision. It is such a sad thing, a deplorably shameful thing for a State to descend to the level of hastily executing persons in order to forestall the service of legal processes that would delay the termination of those human lives. The federal government and its agencies must take this star prize in this shameless, treacherous and opportunistic behaviour.

Expendable Rules and Expendable Lives
Yet, legal processes had been served and, at the very least, the Edo State Attorney General confirmed the receipt of motions to stay the execution. Attorneys for the inmates confirm that fees were paid for Bailiffs to immediately serve the prison authorities upon seeing maneuvers to execute the inmates on that day. And then, a case was pending, according to LEDAP and HURSDEF at the Court of Appeal in Benin. Has not the Supreme Court deprecated, in very strong terms, the irresponsible behaviour of executing prisoners where appeals were pending concerning them?  See BELLO v AG OYO STATE (1986) 5NWLR (part 45) page 828. Has it ceased to be elementary jurisprudence that once an appeal has been entered in court, parties should refrain from further steps in the matter? It is therefore a subversion of justice and a total disregard for the constitutional right to life and the integrity of the court for the execution of the four convicts to have been carried out in spite of all these processes and proceedings pending in court.

When next the government says it respects the rule of law, we could do well to remember the morbid anecdotes of the Benin 4. And then wonder, whether, perhaps, we should not act now to stop this gradual descent into anarchy?

Otteh and Chinweze are with Access to Justice, a justice advocacy group working

news 6:45:00 AM