THE STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN NIGERIA 2005 - UNDP Nigeria ...

The Legal Aid Council, private lawyers and, human rights organizations, provide some of the legalrepresentation.DEATH ROW PERSONS INTERVIEWEDLINUS EZE, male, 42 years of age. With one other person for culpable homicide punishable with deathby High Court No. 3 Maiduguri, Borno State. They were charged in 1986; the case lasted 22 yearsbefore they were convicted and sentenced to death. They have been on death row for four years now.Msugher Gboko is an automobile engineer; he is 34 year old. He was charged for conspiracy andarmed robbery in 1999 before High Court No.6 Makurdi. He was convicted and sentenced to death onthe 19 th July 2002. His appeal is pending before the Court of Appeal Jos. Before the conviction he hadspent three and half years awaiting trial. His relatives and lawyer have rarely visited him since 2002.Bayo Ajia 35, and ten others, were convicted of culpable homicide by the High Court Ilorin inSeptember 2004. After spending sometime in Kaduna prison, they were transferred to Jos prison on 31March 2005. Their appeal is pending before the Supreme Court Abuja. The lawyers of the All NigeriaPeople Party and a human right organization in Kaduna represent them.Martins Igbaka, 39 years old, was convicted of armed robbery by the Armed Robbery Tribunal Jalingo,Taraba State. He spent 6years and 6 months awaiting trial person before he was convicted in 1999. Heis in his seventh year on death row.Jimoh Michael is 39 years old. He was convicted by the High Court Lokoja Kogi State, for conspiracyand culpable homicide punishable with death.He is a policeman.Simon Edibo, is 54 years old. He was charged and convicted for culpable homicide punishable withdeath by the High Court, Makurdi.He spent one year awaiting trial before the conviction. He has spent 8years on death row. He appealed the conviction but a date is yet to be assigned for the appeal to beheard. A private lawyer represents him.Interview with these six convicts who were among the many others on death row inmates at Jos Prisonraised the following human rights issues:­ A good number of the convicts wanted to appeal their sentence, filed papers of appeal but, theappeals were being delayed by the slowness of the judicial system; some do not have moneyto file an appeal.­ Some claimed to have been beaten up by the police during interrogation during whichconfessional statements were extracted from them.­ As the monitors came to their cell, they assumed that the death sentence was about to becarried out on them. They were in constant trauma expecting their executioners any time avisitor comes into the cell.44