Written by Tunde Oyesina, AbujaWednesday, 28 March 2012
The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Dahiru Musdapher and the Nigerian Bar Association NBA, on Tuesday, jointly insisted that death penalty should stay in the nation's law books.
But the European Union (EU) submitted that capital punishment should be completely abolished from the Nigerian legal system.
They made their positions known on Tuesday in Abuja at a one-day programme organised by a Non Governmental Organisation, Lawyers without Borders and France, which is canvassing for the abolition of death penalty in Nigeria.
The CJN stated that death penalty remains a law in Nigeria and would remain so until the National Assembly amends the constitution otherwise.
The CJN, who spoke through his Special Assistant, Hadiza Sontali Sa’eed, further stressed that in constitutional democracy, neither the legislature nor the judiciary was supreme over the constitution.
He added that it was not the responsibility of the judiciary to abolish death sentence in Nigerian laws, but the work of the legislature.
The EU Head of Political Governance and Democracy in Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr Allan Munday, on his part, insisted that death penalty was no longer in vogue in the world and should be abolished in Nigeria.
He urged the Nigerian government to adopt life imprisonment as alternative to death penalty as being practised in the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
But the NBA vehemently opposed the position of the EU, saying that such a system was too premature for Nigeria and would not work.
The National President of the NBA, Joseph Daudu, stated that the call for death penalty abolition was wrongly timed in view of the rampaging activities of the Boko Haram sect that had led to the untimely death of innocent Nigerians and permanently injured the interest of many families.
He charged the EU and the lawyers to direct their energies to re-orientate criminally minded Nigerians to stay out of crime and allow peace to reign.
SOURCE: The Tribune, 28 March 2012. http://tribune.com.ng/index.php
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