 Dyma'r cymdeithasio bwylwyr Cymdeithasol Cymru sy'n ddysgu fy nghymru'r gynghoriwr mae'n rhai eistedd o'r rôl i gael y Gwfnus ydyn ni i fitnig ar unrhyw gwybol ddwy'n ym 3008 oon gyfwan o gyfwag o hyrgau ar gyfer ei gynnwys arweithio Cymru. ongoing mae Llyfrgell Acroes Gwefan ystod o'i cyfrwyng yw hyrgwyr sydd hefyd o gwybol o gwyran o gyfwan o unrhyw gwybol The Executive Director of Capio, Reverend Father Jude Isiguzo, however, said that such a statement was unfair and a violation to the right of life. He stated that it would be miscarriage of justice to sign the death warrant while repentants, insurgents and bandits who commit grievous crimes are ignored or even granted amnesty. Well joining us to discuss this is Maxwell Okbara, he's a legal practitioner and Shagil Shopitang, who's a good governor and advocate and he's an act network. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you, it's my pleasure. Thank you. I'm going to start with you Shagil because you have fallen in the category of civil society organizations and people who advocate for justice and against the ultimate punishment. Now I'm certain that constitutions across the world have been tweaked and re-tweaked to address the issue of the ultimate punishment. But in Africa and in Nigeria we still have that in our law books. But why do we still advocate for people on death roads to face either a firing squad or being killed? Pardon me. This is an ideological conversation again and I can tell you that if you call maybe 100 people or just do a sampling of 10 people, you probably will find a good number saying, if you do the crime then face the time. If the time happens to be death penalty so be it. There are people out there who don't see anything wrong with the death penalty and I would say they have a point to the degree that everybody has a right to hold their opinion. I personally, this is my personality, believe that nobody is ultimately evil and nobody is irredeemable and therefore when you kill a person because the person has committed a crime, no matter how oblivious they are in us, you deny them the opportunity for redemption and I'm not talking of redemption from the religious point of view. You deny them the opportunity to make up for the crimes that they committed, give them the right atmosphere, give them the right rooming and all of that. How do you make up for a crime like killing a person? I mean, whether it's first degree or second degree manslaughter or it's actually, you know, outright murder. How do you make up? How is that redeemable? That's why I say it's an ideological issue, you know, so there are so many answers to that. Can I do so much good with my life that the crimes that I committed in the past can be made up for? The life that I took and denied the right to continue to live, can I make up for that by doing so much good? It's an ideological issue. So for me, honestly, that wouldn't be the issue. I think like you rightly said when you started, if you look across the world, in fact, if you look at the United States of America in particular, there are some states that still advocate and have the death penalty, capital punishment, the ultimate price in their laws. And there are some states in that same country that don't, you know, and it goes across the world like that. Some countries simply don't believe in the death penalty and some do. It's an ideological thing and it's for me personally neither here nor there, especially in this issue. What I find particularly disturbing is that the person advocating or urging governors to sign death warrants for people on the death row, the reason he is giving for it is mind-boggling. It's unbelievable. You know, the reason he is giving is to decongest our prisons, kill people on death row. That makes no sense, you know, because it makes absolutely zero sense. And I really hope that the minister would get the opportunity to see some of these arguments and some of these debates and understand that when we say it makes no sense, it's not that insults to his person. It's just that the argument actually makes no sense. Okay. I'll come back to you. Just put a pin there. I'll come back to you. Let me go to Maxwell. Maxwell, you're a lawyer. So let's look at it from the legal perspective. Our law books do, of course, permit that if you have done the crime, just as Shagun said, you have to do the time. Some people would advocate for life imprisonment and others would say, you know, kill him off because he killed someone or he deserves to be killed. And most people are afraid in other countries, I do not know about Nigeria if we do have the paroling system where some people who are supposed to do life after a couple of years or maybe 10 years, they're giving parol for good behaviour. And sometimes families of those who lost loved ones to the evil act or the dasturty act seem like justice was not done. But from a legal perspective, paint us a picture. There are governors, I know, that have refused, for example, to sign these death warrants, making it very difficult for anybody to be put on death row or to be killed. Do you think that they're doing this deliberately because they are maybe not speaking out but silently in support of or against, rather, the death penalty? Well, I'm just like as you pointed out, I'm talking from a legal point of view and we should also remove morality in the statement made by the Honorable Minister of Interior, Rebo Selan. That is the law. Remember that the law said if you intentionally take away somebody's life, that person's life will also be taken in line with the law. Now, God has said that this particular person committed this crime. The person now appealed to Supreme Court. Supreme Court has given the final and said the person should die by hanging. Now, was there a remedy? Yes. What is a remedy? Amnist by who? Either the governor or the president. Now, if the governor felt that anyway, this person can be of good behaviour, I'm ready to give him what you call it a pardon. So be it. He can go ahead and do that. Nobody is against it. If you are not going to give the person pardon, why are you keeping the person? So is it illegal for governors to withhold their signatures to these death penalties? Is it a crime? Does the constitution criminalise it? The law did not state the time in which the governor should sign the execution warrant. The point the Honorable Minister is making is that you are not giving the person a pardon. Why are you keeping them there? That is very important. So now, on the issue of removing death penalty, I don't suspect that idea. Somebody you saw a 12-year-old child who is a hawken, you rape the girl after raping the girl, you use your what do you call it? You rape the girl and bury the girl and at the end of the day, when you are committed, somebody said, I'm a presidential pardon. What are you, whom are you pardoning? You enter into somebody's house, you looted everything, rape the wife, use bottle, broken bottle and strut into the private part of the woman and the woman bleeding and died. Are all the people on death row really responsible? You might not have the answer because there are people who have accidental discharge and might mistakenly shoot straight bullets. Those ones can be understandable, it's despisional. If somebody, a police officer, are out of a mistake, you shot a gun and a bullet now, a strange bullet and what have you. Those ones are understandable. You are talking about intentional acts. Now you can see what is going on. You collected, you met a particular family, they sold all they have, pay you after collecting the money. You stick you, the medical doctor. So when the people are bringing morality into this thing, it just is a two-way thing. Are you considering those family that you take away their breadwinner? Is anybody considering them? Let us remove morality in all the sense. If you intentionally, the law said if you intentionally take away somebody's life. That person's life will be taken. It's very important. Since we're talking legal and we're also talking morality, let's look at the statement of Minister Raouf Aragbechella talking about the fact that he wants to decongest the prisons. Should we be talking about decongesting the prisons in the same breath with killing people off? Of course those people are on death row, yes? But is it not the responsibility of the government to see to it that our prisons are good enough, are enough to house these prisoners because we're sending them to prison, we have to make accommodations for them. Have you visited a prison lately? What is the condition of the prisons? Should that be the problem of governors as it should be the problem of the federal government? Yes. The point is that the minister is trying to face the past as it is. He's the minister of the interior and the Correlational Centre is under him. They are looking for a way to make it better. They are looking for a way to decongest the prison. This person has been convicted. He has been there for the past 30 years in the death row. Do you know that they are punishing the person? You are even punishing the person. How about, I mean, I'm sorry, I don't know if it's just the death row inmates that are congesting the prisons. I have done several reports, hold on, on prisons. And I have seen several, I'm not saying a handful, several prisoners who were just picked up by police officers and something that was, you know, pinned on them and they still haven't gotten their day in court and they've been left there for months, some for years. Shouldn't the minister be looking at those issues in dealing with those people that have not had their day in court instead of dealing with the few people who are on death row? It is encompassing. You cannot separate one. It is encompassing. I'm looking at the percentage of these people who are in those facilities as compared to the guys who are on death row. Even if they are one, even if they are two, even if they are three. Exactly. What change will three people on death row do in changing the phase or giving room in the prison system? Three, as compared to how many people who are there. Do you know that Nigeria, do you know that Nigeria Government is feeding them? Those people on the death row, do you know that Nigeria Government is feeding them? Now what we are talking about is that it is encompassing. As you are thinking about how to reduce the number of awaiting trial, you also talk about... What should we prioritize more? Innocent people or people who have already been convicted? What should be our priority? All of them, all of them both. OK. Let me go back to Shagun. Shagun, I'm going to ask the same question I asked him. What should we be prioritizing? And really, whether it's an issue of morality or common sense. Shagun, what should we be prioritizing? We have more people who are innocent who have not had their day in court, who have just been abandoned in these prisons. And we're having more and more of them. We see and hear these testimonies every day of people who didn't do anything. They were going about their businesses and they end up in prison and still haven't had their day in court. The number of those people who are seemingly... What's the word? They're not guilty until proven differently. And the number of guys who are on death row, what should the government be prioritizing? Since we're talking about congesting the prisons. Shagun, this, like I said, I understand the point that... Shagun, I think that you're having problems with your connection. Let's try again. Go ahead. I'm saying, if you look at the statistics, right? You have 68,000 inmates in Nigeria. Out of that 68,000 Maryam, it's only 3,000 that are on death row. 3,000. So that's less than 5%. It's about 3% or something like that, that are on death row. By comparison, you have 50,000, 51,000 out of 68 Maryam are waiting trial. Now, if I wanted to decongest the prisons, really, what should I do? So what the minister has basically done is he has looked at the easiest path of least resistance to solve a real problem. Unfortunately, that part of least resistance is going to tread upon human lives. It's going to be killing people off who perhaps might actually not be guilty. We have to understand that at another point. We have to go, but really, is he killing people because these people are already on death row? Of course, that's their fate, really. It's just that it's taking longer than it should. Maryam, I know. What I'm basically saying is that if you wanted to decongest the prisons, why would you start from people that haven't even had their day in court and they are the predominant majority of the people in prisons? They represent over 80, 70% of the prison population are waiting trial. Why do you want to look at the 3% that are on death row and kill them and their lives? Yes, they have been convicted. Yes, they are waiting to be killed. But you have others that you can still deal with to solve your problem. What about the issue of presidential pardon? What about the ones that have been on death row for 20 years and are now better and there is evidence that they are better? Why don't you think of releasing them? I don't know. There is an ideological side to this, but there is also a political side to that. Well, I wish we had time to go on this conversation, but unfortunately we have to go. I can hear the guy saying we have to go. Thank you very much. Maxwell Oqparra is a legal practitioner and Chegw Shopitan is of Axe Network. Thank you gentlemen for being part of this conversation. We appreciate it. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you all for staying with us on this conversation. We'll be back tomorrow with more on Plus Politics. I am Mary Anna Cohn. Have a good evening.