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28 NIGERIA ‘WAITING FOR THE HANGMAN’ NIGERIAN LAWYERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST HANGING “The method of hanging is very cruel. The hangings are conducted in gallows; most of them built many years ago. The condemned prisoners’ cells are very close to the gallows. So whenever the hangman comes to wash the gallows, the chains make noise and the death row inmates will hear it and be terrified. For days these people on death row are put through a huge trauma, as nobody knows whose time it will be.” “The person is handcuffed on the back. That shows that he will be hanged and that is when the trauma starts. Then the person will be asked to step into the gallows. The rope is supposed to hang around the neck when the person falls. But because the gallows often malfunction, when the person drops, the rope will not hold and the person falls. This can happen several times before the execution is successful.” 102 WOMEN “Incarcerated women represent a population clearly most vulnerable and at risk of health problems, including problems that may affect their children.” 103 LEDAP research on women prisoners, 2003 There are 11 women on death row in Nigeria, held in seven prisons. 104 Five women are incarcerated in the only women’s prison, Kirikiri Women’s prison, where they wear blue uniforms marked with the letters “cc” (condemned convicts). The others are held in the female wings of six other prisons. The women are aged between 20 and 63; at least one was a juvenile at the time of the crime. Ten were sentenced to death for murder or culpable homicide; one for armed robbery. Three have spent more than 10 years on death row – one has been held there for 16 years. Most waited four or five years for their trial to be concluded; one was awaiting trial for 10 years before she was sentenced to death. At least eight of the women are waiting for their appeal, and in one case the appeal has been pending for 14 years. 105 Amnesty International and LEDAP found that the problems of women prisoners are different from those found in the male wings of prisons. Though the cells are generally less overcrowded and cleaner, there are hardly any activities or space for recreation during the day. In most prisons, the death row prisoners and other convicts are locked up together in the same cell. DEATHS IN PRISON Many prisoners on death row told Amnesty International and LEDAP that their co-accused had died, either before they were sentenced to death or while on death row. One death row prisoner who has been on death row for 10 years said: “Ten were arrested, five sentenced to death. Before, we were seven, but two died; one of them was mentally ill.” 106 Amnesty International October 2008 Index: AFR 44/020/2008
© Amnesty International In one prison, in the past eight years, 82 prisoners died from “natural causes” (anything other than judicial execution), including five death row prisoners (four men and one woman). Two of the death row prisoners died of HIV/AIDS. 107 A woman prisoner under sentence of death, Katsina Central Prison. A death row prisoner described the death of his co-defendant: “Our cells were facing each other. He started vomiting, then complained of chest pain. One morning he was dead.” 108 In Kirikiri Maximum Security prison, Lagos, Fatai Olayinka died on 14 February 2006, after 24 years in prison. 109 Shortly after his death, and 21 years after he was sentenced to death for armed robbery, the Supreme Court quashed his conviction. His lawyer, Norrison Quakers, only found out he had died when he went to the prison to tell Fatai Olayinka he had been discharged. According to LEDAP research: “half of the inmates in Enugu state and all the inmates in Lagos state have witnessed the death of an inmate. Causes of such deaths include untreated sickness, malnutrition and others like HIV/AIDS.” 110 Amnesty International and LEDAP have not managed to obtain any official statistics on the number of deaths in custody of death row inmates. Amnesty International and LEDAP has been told that some prisons do not inform family members when prisoners have died. Index: AFR 44/020/2008 Amnesty International October 2008
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