Thou Shall Not Kill…A Rejoinder to Dr. Aliyu Tilde
By
Hannatu Musa
FORWARDED BY DR. ALIYU TILDE
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
I was interested to read the recent public debate in favour of death penalty. It prompted me to ask friends and neighbours their opinions on the matter. Just about everybody I talked to was strongly in favour of capital punishment, citing a multitude of reasons why Nigeria needs to retain death as a reasonable form of punishment. Fortunately, there also seems to be a consensus that this punishment has to be reserved for the worst of crimes – most people refer to murder as the crime that befits death. However, none of the arguments I heard persuaded me that capital punishment is a just or effective solution even to murder. I will take this opportunity to justify my position, (although this puts me in a lonely corner).
We have all heard the arguments in favour of the death penalty. The advocates of capital punishment claim that it is a necessary deterrent against the worst crimes, such as murder in cold blood. It is argued that any lesser penalty, such as life-time imprisonment, will be interpreted by many as ‘the culprit got away with it’. Others would be tempted to follow the murderers’ example leading to an increased murder rate. By taking somebody’s life in a premeditated way, it is claimed, the killers forsakes any right to live – after all, they didn’t extend that kind of compassion to their victims. It is automatically assumed that somebody who has killed has no wish to be reformed in any way and that murderers are therefore beyond salvation.
Sympathies for a murderer’s right to live are interpreted in two ways. Either they are seen as the effect of an exaggerated valuing of human life by people who do not believe in an afterlife (if life on earth is all we have we must take the greatest care to preserve it), or any empathy that is shown for a murderer is construed as the attitude of somebody who has lesser morals and ethical values because they do not value a life enough to rid society of evil killers.
However, it is debatable whether capital punishment has ever acted as a deterrent. It is true that many countries with high rates of violent crimes exercise the death penalty. The United States is a classic example. In 1995, the country had a national murder rate of 8 per 100,000 population (a high number in the Western world). A total of 38 of the 50 US States provide for the death penalty in law and in total 56 people were executed that year. The United States is also one of the strongest supporters of capital punishment with 70% of the population supporting execution for murder.
Nonetheless, it is futile to use murder rates as a measure of the effectiveness that capital punishment has as a deterrent because these statistics say nothing about the number of killings that might or might not have taken place had capital punishment been replaced by life-imprisonment. To measure the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent, it is preferable to examine murder rates of societies after they decided to abolish the death sentence. Canada, for example, abolished the death penalty in 1976. In the year previous to the abolition, the homicide rate was 3.09 per 100,000 population. By 1980, this rate had fallen to 2.41 and since then it has declined further to 1.78 in 2001. This denotes a 42% decline in the homicide rate since the abolition of the death penalty.
We can therefore assume that the threat of death does not deter murderers from their actions. Neither was the abolition of the death penalty interpreted as a licence to murder by others. In the face of these statistics, it is not surprising that the most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded that there is no convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. (R. Hood, The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective, Oxford University Press, third edition, 2002).
In fact, the implementation of the death penalty can cost the lives of innocent people who are wrongly convicted. Since 1973, 107 prisoners have been released from death row in the USA after evidence of their innocence emerged. Some had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. In the case of other prisoners who were executed, new evidence proving innocence came too late. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct, the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence or confessions, and inadequate defence representation. While it is possible that the legal system of the USA is flawed, these kinds of weaknesses would exist even within the best judicial system in the world. After all, judicial systems are designed and implemented by humans, and to err is human.
Worse still, punishments can be applied randomly and discriminatorily. In the USA, 43% of all inmates on death row are black, while they represent only an average 12% of the population. It is probably no coincidence that, there, 99% of all lawyers are white, and 70% of the accused belong to an ethnic minority. The death penalty in the USA is imposed disproportionately upon those whose victims are white, offenders who are people of colour, and on those who are poor and uneducated. I do not wish to single out the US as having a rotten judicial system. All judicial systems are designed and implemented by humans who, like all of us, have inherent values and beliefs that affect their judgements and decision-making.
In view of the fact that judicial systems can be mistaken or biased, it is important that individuals are never deprived of the opportunity to prove their innocence. This does not mean that murderers should be left to walk free, rather that it is better to have the option of releasing those who are falsely convicted from a prison sentence. This is especially true in a country with little political stability or where people do not have confidence in the justice system.
If capital punishment statistically does not prove to be a deterrent against murder and mistaken convictions cannot be revoked, then why do so many countries still retain the death penalty?
Maybe it is inconsequential to argue that capital punishment is an effective deterrent for potential murderers. For many of its supporters, the motivation for killing a murderer is not to protect society from evil, but to act as a form of retribution. It is believed to be the only punishment fit for the worst of crimes. Advocates argue that a murder victim’s life is trivialised if a likewise punishment is not inflicted on the killer. At this point, the debate here really is not about the hypothetical value attached to a person’s life, but about the purpose of the judicial system.
We need to ask what we ultimately want from the system. The law sets out the rules that allow us to live in harmony and the judicial system is there to enforce the law and allow society to exist peacefully. If we want a judicial system to act as a mechanism of ensuring that society abides by the law, then imprisonment is an effective tool to protect us from dangerous criminals. On the other hand, maybe we want a judicial system that does not take into account the well-being of society as a whole; rather, its function is to appease victims on an individual basis. In that case, many victims or their relatives will want to see a perpetrator suffer even when nothing is gained by revenge. However, in this case, the judicial system is a framework that keeps peace by carrying out revenge on the victim’s behalf and prevents a spiral of revenge and blood feuds.
In summary, capital punishment has been proven to be an ineffective deterrent against crime. Many countries around the world have either stopped using the death sentence or abolished capital punishment, and their number is increasing annually. There was no rise in the rate of murders or violent crimes as a result. Neither do evil people walk away from their crimes unpunished in these countries. A life sentence is still an effective deterrent and a sentence that may be passed more frequently, thereby allowing a penal system to be tougher on crime. There is also the question of innocent lives that have been lost because of errors or prejudiced judicial systems.
If it is proven that societies can protect themselves from murderers by imposing prison sentences, the death penalty serves no other purpose but to bring meaning to the victim’s life by signifying that a killer’s life is worth no more than that of the victim. It may help us come to terms with acts of evil when we see a closure on killers conduct and their lives. But it will never bring back a deceased person, nor will it justify the institutionalised killing that capital punishment represents.
Showing posts with label Death Penalty in Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death Penalty in Nigeria. Show all posts
Friday, May 21, 2010
"An Eye For An Eye…”
By
Dr. Aliyu Tilde
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
What do you do to a person who intentionally and knowingly killed another person without any sanction of law? Section 221 of the Penal Code, like section 319 of the Criminal Code, says he should be killed.
Before now, there was little doubt in Nigeria that the above position of law is the correct and natural one. But no more. Now, the country is about to indulge in the death penalty debate. There were press reports last week that the House has started deliberating on the issue. Though I heard the Speaker early this week denying it over the BBC Hausa Service, there is little doubt that a pro-western government like that of Obasanjo will attempt to abolish death sentence, if only to impress his international mentors. With its majority in the National Assembly, its contempt for debate and guided by the president, the ruling party may attempt a shot. Nigerians, before a decision is taken to that effect on their behalf, should better stand up and debate publicly on this important aspect of law and its impact on the future of crime in the country.
There is little doubt that Nigerians, like citizens of other countries, will be divided over the issue, though with supporters of abolition in the minority. Two months ago, Amnesty International has reported that countries in the world are divided between 112 “abolitionists” and 83 “retiontionists”, as at 2002. The abolitionists include abolitionists for all crimes; abolitionists for ordinary crimes only; and abolitionists by practice. The last group are those that have not scrapped death penalty by law, but have stayed action on it over the past decade or so. Retentionists are those that have maintained death penalty at least for ordinary crimes like murder!
Agreed, the concept of abolition death sentence is Western, but it is wrong to assume that it is very popular among citizens of western countries. For example, 38 American states still retain the death penalty and America itself is the third highest executioner in the world. So if anyone in the present Nigerian government thinks that by abolishing death penalty he is likely to earn a credit from America, he is mistaken. Let us remember that George W. Bush was, until his election as President, the governor of Texas, the most fanatical retentionist state in the US.
Before looking at the various arguments for and against death penalty, let us see the statistics of people who are actually affected by it worldwide. Amnesty International has reported that, known to the organization, in 2002, “at least 1,526 prisoners were executed in 31 countries and at least 3,248 people were sentenced to death in 67 countries”. About 81% of the executions took place in three countries only: China (1,060), Iran (113) and America (71).
It is likely that most Africans will, after reading the above figures, consider the death penalty debate a luxury. They will ask: Why bother us with the execution of only 1,526 lives annually, of criminals for that matter? Not unreasonable, any way, because in Africa, IMF, World Bank, power, ethnicity, disease and deprivation have formed a syndicate that executes thousands of Africans daily. How many Africans die of AIDS annually, for example? Why should the continent then bother about the lives of criminals, including leaders, whose actions and inactions are responsible for the loss of these lives – people like Taylor, for example?
Supporters of abolishing death penalty will argue that when life is under consideration, numbers do not count. If a single sentence in our statute books could elongate the life of a person or save it altogether, it is worth writing that sentence. It is humanity, not economics, they say.
Here, retentionists will argue that in killing a murderer, for example, the law is saving the lives of many, one, by making sure that he never lives again to commit another murder and, two, by deterring potential criminals from killing more people. So, it is like investment, where you sink a penny to earn a pound. Or as someone once put it, if the law fails to execute a murderer, it is causing the deaths of many citizens who will be killed by a potential murderer that would have been deterred by the provision of death penalty.
Abolitionist will defend their position by citing the relevant statistics showing that crimes are not significantly reduced or murders have not stopped, in spite of the death penalty. Amnesty International here has cited a 1988 UN report which concluded by saying, “it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment.” Therefore, the report said, “The fact that the statistics… continue to point in the same direction is persuasive evidence that countries need not fear sudden and serious changes in the curve of crime if they reduce their reliance upon the death penalty…”
Even the Bishops of Texas in 1997 were quick to open their statement of support for abolition of death penalty by saying, “despite a growing reliance on longer sentences, more prisons, and more executions, our state’s crime rate has escalated.” Perhaps, the Bishops have forgotten that crime is not dictated by death penalty alone.
A religious person, especially from Nigeria, is likely to question the competence of these Bishops in theology. God, he will prove by quoting many passages from the Bible, has sanctioned the execution of murderers. Well, he will be in for another shocker. The Bishops in their statement said, “State of Texas is usurping the sovereign dominion of God over human life by employing capital punishment for heinous crimes.”!!!
Like the Bishops, abolitionists contend that death sentence does not bring back the lives of the killed; neither does it reduce the agony of his loved ones. In the words of the Bishops, it is “violence for violence, death for death.” The option that the Bishops have given is “repentance not forgiveness, conversion not death are better guides for public policy on the death penalty…” They claimed their advice was on the authority of Prophet Ezekiel, who said, “As I live, says the Lord God, I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the wicked man’s conversion, that he may live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!”
To me the most comical part of the Bishops’ submission is where they said, “If… non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.”
The proponents of death penalty would wonder what common good or dignity is there in allowing a murderer – a person full of evil and lowliness – to remain alive. His death, the proponents will argue, is the surest path to dignity and common good.
Proponents of death penalty will also ask why should public funds be used to maintain a criminal in prison for life. In Texas, the Bishops countered this argument by saying “it costs $2.3 million on an average to prosecute and execute each capital case as compared to $400,000 for life imprisonment.” I wonder how much it costs to pay a police sergeant to, among other things in his schedule, prosecute a murder case before a magistrate court in Nigeria.
Now, arguments aside, what is the actual position of death penalty in Nigeria? Well, the country is grouped among countries that have not signed the UN’s Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming At the Abolition of Death Penalty. In fact, in Africa, only five states have signed and ratified the treaty, namely, Djibouti, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand and South Africa. Two others – Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, have signed but not ratified it.
At a time, I once thought Nigeria should qualify for inclusion among states that have abolished the death penalty by practice. Oh yes. Many death sentences have been passed in the past eighteen years, including those found guilty of perpetrating mass killings during civil disturbances. But how many have been executed? In fact, some, like Major General Zamani Lekwot (Rtd) who masterminded the Zangon Kataf genocide in the early 90s, had the sentences mitigated to only a four-year jail term. Where are others who perpetrated similar crises twice in Kafanchan, twice in Kaduna, twice in Tafawa Balewa, twice in Jos and many times in Lagos? They are all alive, not due to humanitarian reasons like those of Amnesty International but due to the complicity, ineptitude or weakness of their governors, many of whom would not want to be seen as responsible for terminating the lives of others!
Obasanjo is also a beneficiary of this hesitation. If Abacha were resolute with him on the death penalty in 1995, as was Babangida with Vatsa in 1985, we would not have had an Obasanjo as president today. So I do not think that Obasanjo, who claims the piety of a born-again and who has benefited from the contemplation of Abacha, will be eager to hang anybody for any crime, no matter how heinous. Or is it so? The contradiction is that if Obasanjo and the governors are indeed that sympathetic to human lives, I wonder what account they would give regarding the lives of Nigerians killed to ensure the success of their second term bid, I mean people like Bola Ige and Marshall Harry.
That is why I am not convinced that people who could cover up the death of Marshall Harry and Bola Ige would at the same time be honest about sponsoring a bill to abolish the death penalty. They can do so only if they are attempting to save the lives of their comrades in jail.
In any case, the outcome of the debate on death penalty in Nigeria is predictable, with 100% certainty. It is doubtful if the military and political establishments will allow any mitigation of punishments for crimes like treason. Also, Nigerians have strong convictions regarding their religions. To the understanding of most Muslims and Christians, the rule which God gave Moses is still applicable: “And We ordained therein for them: ‘Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.’ But if anyone remits the retaliation by way of charity, it shall be for him an expiration. And whosoever doesn’t judge with what God has revealed, such are the wrongdoers.”
If Obasanjo and the ruling party is generous to grant them the privilege of opinion, most Nigerians, I believe, will insist that our armed robbers and killers of Chief Bola Ige and Marshall Harry should face no lesser punishment than death – the very injury they inflicted on their victims. The life of the murderer cannot be more sacred than the life of his victim. The practical difference today is the while the murderer is living and could spend his money to tamper with justice or threaten to reveal the identities of “the cabal”, the victim is dead, silent and forsaken and forgotten. If allowed a life sentence only, INEC would even one day make the murderer our President.
I concur with the majority, as would Bola Ige in the grave. And so would all his sincere friends, the likes of Professor Wole Soyinka. “An eye for an eye…”
By
Dr. Aliyu Tilde
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
What do you do to a person who intentionally and knowingly killed another person without any sanction of law? Section 221 of the Penal Code, like section 319 of the Criminal Code, says he should be killed.
Before now, there was little doubt in Nigeria that the above position of law is the correct and natural one. But no more. Now, the country is about to indulge in the death penalty debate. There were press reports last week that the House has started deliberating on the issue. Though I heard the Speaker early this week denying it over the BBC Hausa Service, there is little doubt that a pro-western government like that of Obasanjo will attempt to abolish death sentence, if only to impress his international mentors. With its majority in the National Assembly, its contempt for debate and guided by the president, the ruling party may attempt a shot. Nigerians, before a decision is taken to that effect on their behalf, should better stand up and debate publicly on this important aspect of law and its impact on the future of crime in the country.
There is little doubt that Nigerians, like citizens of other countries, will be divided over the issue, though with supporters of abolition in the minority. Two months ago, Amnesty International has reported that countries in the world are divided between 112 “abolitionists” and 83 “retiontionists”, as at 2002. The abolitionists include abolitionists for all crimes; abolitionists for ordinary crimes only; and abolitionists by practice. The last group are those that have not scrapped death penalty by law, but have stayed action on it over the past decade or so. Retentionists are those that have maintained death penalty at least for ordinary crimes like murder!
Agreed, the concept of abolition death sentence is Western, but it is wrong to assume that it is very popular among citizens of western countries. For example, 38 American states still retain the death penalty and America itself is the third highest executioner in the world. So if anyone in the present Nigerian government thinks that by abolishing death penalty he is likely to earn a credit from America, he is mistaken. Let us remember that George W. Bush was, until his election as President, the governor of Texas, the most fanatical retentionist state in the US.
Before looking at the various arguments for and against death penalty, let us see the statistics of people who are actually affected by it worldwide. Amnesty International has reported that, known to the organization, in 2002, “at least 1,526 prisoners were executed in 31 countries and at least 3,248 people were sentenced to death in 67 countries”. About 81% of the executions took place in three countries only: China (1,060), Iran (113) and America (71).
It is likely that most Africans will, after reading the above figures, consider the death penalty debate a luxury. They will ask: Why bother us with the execution of only 1,526 lives annually, of criminals for that matter? Not unreasonable, any way, because in Africa, IMF, World Bank, power, ethnicity, disease and deprivation have formed a syndicate that executes thousands of Africans daily. How many Africans die of AIDS annually, for example? Why should the continent then bother about the lives of criminals, including leaders, whose actions and inactions are responsible for the loss of these lives – people like Taylor, for example?
Supporters of abolishing death penalty will argue that when life is under consideration, numbers do not count. If a single sentence in our statute books could elongate the life of a person or save it altogether, it is worth writing that sentence. It is humanity, not economics, they say.
Here, retentionists will argue that in killing a murderer, for example, the law is saving the lives of many, one, by making sure that he never lives again to commit another murder and, two, by deterring potential criminals from killing more people. So, it is like investment, where you sink a penny to earn a pound. Or as someone once put it, if the law fails to execute a murderer, it is causing the deaths of many citizens who will be killed by a potential murderer that would have been deterred by the provision of death penalty.
Abolitionist will defend their position by citing the relevant statistics showing that crimes are not significantly reduced or murders have not stopped, in spite of the death penalty. Amnesty International here has cited a 1988 UN report which concluded by saying, “it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment.” Therefore, the report said, “The fact that the statistics… continue to point in the same direction is persuasive evidence that countries need not fear sudden and serious changes in the curve of crime if they reduce their reliance upon the death penalty…”
Even the Bishops of Texas in 1997 were quick to open their statement of support for abolition of death penalty by saying, “despite a growing reliance on longer sentences, more prisons, and more executions, our state’s crime rate has escalated.” Perhaps, the Bishops have forgotten that crime is not dictated by death penalty alone.
A religious person, especially from Nigeria, is likely to question the competence of these Bishops in theology. God, he will prove by quoting many passages from the Bible, has sanctioned the execution of murderers. Well, he will be in for another shocker. The Bishops in their statement said, “State of Texas is usurping the sovereign dominion of God over human life by employing capital punishment for heinous crimes.”!!!
Like the Bishops, abolitionists contend that death sentence does not bring back the lives of the killed; neither does it reduce the agony of his loved ones. In the words of the Bishops, it is “violence for violence, death for death.” The option that the Bishops have given is “repentance not forgiveness, conversion not death are better guides for public policy on the death penalty…” They claimed their advice was on the authority of Prophet Ezekiel, who said, “As I live, says the Lord God, I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the wicked man’s conversion, that he may live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!”
To me the most comical part of the Bishops’ submission is where they said, “If… non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.”
The proponents of death penalty would wonder what common good or dignity is there in allowing a murderer – a person full of evil and lowliness – to remain alive. His death, the proponents will argue, is the surest path to dignity and common good.
Proponents of death penalty will also ask why should public funds be used to maintain a criminal in prison for life. In Texas, the Bishops countered this argument by saying “it costs $2.3 million on an average to prosecute and execute each capital case as compared to $400,000 for life imprisonment.” I wonder how much it costs to pay a police sergeant to, among other things in his schedule, prosecute a murder case before a magistrate court in Nigeria.
Now, arguments aside, what is the actual position of death penalty in Nigeria? Well, the country is grouped among countries that have not signed the UN’s Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming At the Abolition of Death Penalty. In fact, in Africa, only five states have signed and ratified the treaty, namely, Djibouti, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand and South Africa. Two others – Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, have signed but not ratified it.
At a time, I once thought Nigeria should qualify for inclusion among states that have abolished the death penalty by practice. Oh yes. Many death sentences have been passed in the past eighteen years, including those found guilty of perpetrating mass killings during civil disturbances. But how many have been executed? In fact, some, like Major General Zamani Lekwot (Rtd) who masterminded the Zangon Kataf genocide in the early 90s, had the sentences mitigated to only a four-year jail term. Where are others who perpetrated similar crises twice in Kafanchan, twice in Kaduna, twice in Tafawa Balewa, twice in Jos and many times in Lagos? They are all alive, not due to humanitarian reasons like those of Amnesty International but due to the complicity, ineptitude or weakness of their governors, many of whom would not want to be seen as responsible for terminating the lives of others!
Obasanjo is also a beneficiary of this hesitation. If Abacha were resolute with him on the death penalty in 1995, as was Babangida with Vatsa in 1985, we would not have had an Obasanjo as president today. So I do not think that Obasanjo, who claims the piety of a born-again and who has benefited from the contemplation of Abacha, will be eager to hang anybody for any crime, no matter how heinous. Or is it so? The contradiction is that if Obasanjo and the governors are indeed that sympathetic to human lives, I wonder what account they would give regarding the lives of Nigerians killed to ensure the success of their second term bid, I mean people like Bola Ige and Marshall Harry.
That is why I am not convinced that people who could cover up the death of Marshall Harry and Bola Ige would at the same time be honest about sponsoring a bill to abolish the death penalty. They can do so only if they are attempting to save the lives of their comrades in jail.
In any case, the outcome of the debate on death penalty in Nigeria is predictable, with 100% certainty. It is doubtful if the military and political establishments will allow any mitigation of punishments for crimes like treason. Also, Nigerians have strong convictions regarding their religions. To the understanding of most Muslims and Christians, the rule which God gave Moses is still applicable: “And We ordained therein for them: ‘Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.’ But if anyone remits the retaliation by way of charity, it shall be for him an expiration. And whosoever doesn’t judge with what God has revealed, such are the wrongdoers.”
If Obasanjo and the ruling party is generous to grant them the privilege of opinion, most Nigerians, I believe, will insist that our armed robbers and killers of Chief Bola Ige and Marshall Harry should face no lesser punishment than death – the very injury they inflicted on their victims. The life of the murderer cannot be more sacred than the life of his victim. The practical difference today is the while the murderer is living and could spend his money to tamper with justice or threaten to reveal the identities of “the cabal”, the victim is dead, silent and forsaken and forgotten. If allowed a life sentence only, INEC would even one day make the murderer our President.
I concur with the majority, as would Bola Ige in the grave. And so would all his sincere friends, the likes of Professor Wole Soyinka. “An eye for an eye…”
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