That baseless death sentence on Wahab

A ruling by the Court of Appeal in Lagos a fortnight ago which set free Ganiyu Wahab from the hangman’s noose after he had spent 11 years in jail, highlighted the obnoxious criminal justice system in Nigeria. In taking the decision, the court held that Wahab’s earlier conviction “was based on the evidence of the […]

A ruling by the Court of Appeal in Lagos a fortnight ago which set free Ganiyu Wahab from the hangman’s noose after he had spent 11 years in jail, highlighted the obnoxious criminal justice system in Nigeria. In taking the decision, the court held that Wahab’s earlier conviction “was based on the evidence of the only one eyewitness called [and] that the confessional statements of the accused person were erroneous as both evidences contained different facts.”
The court also held that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The Court of Appeal, therefore, discharged and acquitted Wahab. This avoidable injustice was upturned, thanks to a successful appeal filed by the Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP).
In other climes, before a suspected criminal is sentenced over a capital offence, a thorough investigation, including a forensic analysis of the evidence provided by the prosecution, and an elaborate cross-examination of witnesses who would be required to substantiate their allegations beyond reasonable doubt, would be carried out.
The criminal justice system comprises the penal code; law enforcement agencies; the court system; the prisons (detention or correctional institutions) and even the community. The Centre for Public Policy Alternatives (CPPA) has correctly identified the fact that the components of the system in Nigeria lack a coherent policy framework and appears to be consistently derogating themselves rather than reducing crime rates.
To support the fact that criminal justice system in Nigeria has been bastardized was a recent report by the Human Rights Commission in Nigeria which raised the alarm over the ever-increasing number of Nigerians incarcerated in either police cells or prisons without being found guilty of any offence.
The reasons for this are many. Chief among them is the fact that, as those on the front-line of the criminal justice system, the police have not developed their investigative techniques beyond prosecuting cases based upon dubious “confessions” obtained at their stations. The elementary procedures of fingerprinting, much less forensics and DNA testing, are still yet to be introduced despite being necessary to prove guilt beyond doubt.
Perhaps, worse of all is the continued practice of arresting and detaining anyone against whom a complaint has been made, without a deliberate attempt to verify the facts of the matter or providing the opportunity for an alternative means of settling the disputes. Anyone against whom complaints are made would need to be bailed or detained even when he voluntarily appeared at the station in person. This is a gross infringement of human rights.
There is absolutely no justification for detaining citizens who have not been found guilty of any offence. Even for those found guilty, it is vital to include suspended sentences, community service and parole   into our justice system to ensure that prisons are not filled with those convicted of minor offences. There should also be alternative custodial sentencing for small offences.
We call on government to ensure that all components of the system work together. The piecemeal reforms, such as the new Administration of Criminal Justice Act, cannot solve the problem. Nigeria, as a democratic nation, must strive to maintain an efficient, unbiased and modern criminal justice system.
Even the penal code is neither widely known nor widely advertised in Nigeria and the majority of citizens do not know their rights. The judiciary needs to be modernized and digitized to ensure that the process of delivering judgement is made faster, instead of using the manual process that weighs down judges.
Also, the judiciary must purge itself of corrupt elements who discount their high responsibility for financial gains.  The Federal Government, National Judicial Council and other organs of the Judiciary must rise to the occasion to clean up the system, because there are many Ganiyu Wahabs who are languishing in our prisons unnecessarily. Many more have death sentences hanging on their necks for offences they never committed.