State executives and exercise of prerogative of mercy

To say that the president of the country and the various governors of states also hold the power of life and death is to state the obvious. The most powerful law book in the country, which is the constitution, has conferred much of these powers on these very important public officials. These dignitaries have the […]

To say that the president of the country and the various governors of states also hold the power of life and death is to state the obvious.
The most powerful law book in the country, which is the constitution, has conferred much of these powers on these very important public officials.
These dignitaries have the powers to order or endorse the decisions of the high, appeal and supreme courts in the event of death sentence. Sections 175 and 212 of the constitution as amended confer this power to the president or governor respectively. This power is called Prerogative of Mercy. It is the right exercisable by these individuals as a result of their offices whereby they grant pardon to a condemned person or reduce or commute the death sentence to terms of imprisonment.
By these sections of the constitution, it means that they can help to decongest the heavily populated prisons in the country if they regularly exercise this power positively.
There are many Nigerians in prisons who are classified as those ‘awaiting trial’. These have spent years in this condition without judges giving final verdict to their cases. There are also those that have been condemned yet have not been executed. They abound in both state and federal prisons which is why our prisons overflow without commensurate welfare facilities and compensation.
Many have not stopped to frown at the delay in justice delivery in the court which has forced many groups to speak up, while others advocate Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as one more way to reduce cases in courts.
The president of Nigeria and the state governors should help exercise this power of Prerogative of Mercy to give hope to prisoners. There are instances where prisoners are wrongly condemned or imprisoned. There are those we must look again at their plight. Prerogative of Mercy can help them regain their freedom and self-esteem.
Arising from this wrong imprisonment and capital punishment, recently a team of lawyers under the aegis of Brotherhood International Lawyers Fellowship with headquarters in Calabar, Nigeria, got together and publicly spoke against these, exclaiming that it was against divine essence and God’s purpose.
 Speaking at the 2nd International Lawyers convention in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State recently, His Lordship Bishop (Barrister) Chris Amadike, in his paper titled “Capital Punishment and The Divine Prerogative of Mercy,” argued that no person has the right to take the life of another. He quoted Section 33(1) of the 1999 Constitution, to support his assertion.
He admitted that the issue could be controversial when attempt is made to canvass on capital punishment and Prerogative of Mercy.
Amadike explained that “A person can only be deprived of his life if he commits a serious offence such as murder, armed robbery, treason, etc, and has been found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction and convicted according to the law creating that offence. A court of competent jurisdiction in this regard is a court of record such as the Federal High Court, High Courts of the various states, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, and not courts of summary jurisdiction such as Magistrate Courts, etc. It is the judges of the High Courts or justices of the Court of Appeal and or Supreme Court that have the powers to impose death penalty on a person found guilty of such serious criminal offences mentioned above.”
Amadike, a Port Harcourt-based lawyer, like other senior lawyers that attended the convention, posited that capital punishment anywhere in the world has not achieved its desired purpose by solving the problems it was meant to do.
“The answer is capital NO! Thousands of persons have been convicted, sentenced to death and executed in Nigeria and elsewhere for heinous crimes in the past but that has deterred others from committing the same offence(s). In fact the commission of such heinous crimes is in the increase instead of reducing.
“This points to the fact that capital punishment and Prerogative of Mercy have not been able to solve problems of man with regard to the offences for which capital punishment was created.
“It has failed its purpose and therefore should be done away with. We support the clamor by many that death sentence should be abolished for many reasons, including the fact that it is against the will of God Almighty,” he said.
According to Barrister Amadike, the exercise of Prerogative of Mercy is in most cases selective and given political coloration in Nigeria because of man’s imperfection, interest, etc.
Another senior lawyer at First Royal Chambers, Calabar, Justice Ahiakwo Ossai, who also spoke on imperative need to revolutionise the country’s judicial system, insisted that capital punishment was outdated, maintaining that Nigeria should emulate modern societies to reform its laws.
He called on the president, governors and all with such powers to determine the fate of human beings to restrain and rather apply divine virtue of mercy and forgiveness in the execution of their powers.
Even as he cautioned the authorities against death sentence and capital punishment, Justice Ossai stressed on importance of obeying the laws of the state so that issue of capital punishment may not arise.
However, in all of these, it has become very needful for our state executives to regularly, in exercise of their Prerogative of Mercy release convicted Nigerians on parole. As human beings looking at the poor state of our prisons and pitiable conditions of prisoners, they should have the human feeling and be forgiving.
None should worry if they would come to persist on their nefarious activities. Only very minute number of those released on parole may want to go back to such crimes that sent them to prison in the first place.