Pilot Law

CURRENT ISSUES: It’s injustice for Nigerian Govs to refuse signing death sentence

 

AbdulGaniyu Bello is an Ilorin-based legal practitioner who has carved
a niche for himself in the profession. He speaks with our JUDICIARY
CORRESPONDENT, KAYODE ADEOTI, on the botched proposed death penalty
for hate speech offenders among other germane issues. Excerpts;

How do you see the proposed penalty for hate speech?
I want to believe that our law must have human face, concerning the
proposed death sentence for hate speech, it is too on the extreme
side. It is not a normal thing for our lawmakers to prescribe sentence
for anyone that commits offence related to hate speech. I subscribe to
the school of thought that there is need for us to regulate the use of
our social media in Nigeria. Everyone has turned themselves to
journalist, a job that supposed to be for the professionals. In
today’s society, anybody can draft anything and post  on internet.
Such development can lead to riot which may have death consequence.
But we shouldn’t start that hate speech penalty with death sentence.
Law is to make one deter from bad act not passing ultimate sentence on
offenders. We can limit it to payment of fine and the likes. For
legislature to propose that kind of Law, it means they are not
serious. There are many issues giving us concern in the country than
that. There are issues that has to do with corruption and they are
embedded in that act, the lawmakers close their eyes on this and they
are giving priority to hate speech. It is like they want to shut the
citizens out so that they wouldn’t be able to talk again. There are
certain things they can do to curb the menace that even if you post
any wrong thing, they will pull it down just as it is applicable in
other countries.
For several years, state governors have refused to sign death sentence…?
In Nigeria, most of us are hypocrites, law supposed to be what it is
stated in our law book. In Nigeria, it is the masses that face the
wrath of the law, if it affects the rich ones, they know how to go
about it. Our governors have refused to sign death sentence, if a
person kills and he’s taken to court, prosecuted in a proper way and
found guilty by the court, if he appeals at the Court of Appeal even
Supreme Court and these courts uphold the decisions of the lower
court, what remains for the governor to do is to sign the warrant but
they will not do that. We’ve seen such situation in Nigerian states.
For instance, in Saudi Arabia, their laws are well stated that if you
kill, and you are convicted, you will be killed.
(Cuts-in) but some legal practitioners have argued that such aspect
should be removed from our law, how do you see that?
That is an injustice in the highest order, someone kills and you’re
saying he shouldn’t be killed and should be living. It’s wrong, I
wonder why people say killing those who have committed murder is
barbaric, their actions of killing fellow human being, is not
barbaric? A Muslim must not kill nor the Christians, it’s a stated in
the Holy books that thou shall not kill. Even if you kill, according
to the Quran, you have to fast for certain number of days, 60 days
non-stop. In Nigeria, we kill for granted, especially those that were
been used by politicians.
How do you see the allegations that elections of Bayelsa and Kogi
States were sold…?
I don’t want to believe that, though the way we handle elections in
this country is barbaric and animalistic and we need to change. I want
to call on the Federal Government to go back to the Kuwait commission
and make use of the report. If we can do that, we don’t need to buy
votes. In Nigeria, we like kangaroo set of up, we should change from
that.

Show More

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button