Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
Nigeria plans to execute more than 300 prisoners on death row. Capital punishment remains on the books in Nigeria. But there hasn’t been an official execution in the West African nation in eight years. Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, and a former political prisoner.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP:  I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  Nigeria has a plan to clear out some space in its over-crowded jails.  But it strikes some as a bit severe.  The plan is to execute more than 300 prisoners on death row.  Capital punishment remains on the books in Nigeria, but there hasn’t been an official execution in the African nation in eight years.  Shayhu Sani is with the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria.  He’s also a former political prisoner.  Sani is in the capital Abuja, he says that officials that back the plan to put the 300 prisoners to death, should reconsider.

SHAYHU SANI:  What they are doing is wrong because most of those awaiting executions were people who have been convicted by military tribunals.  You can’t just execute people without actually reviewing their cases, because it happened during military regimes.

SHARP: Why is this happening now?

SANI: Well it is happening now because there is a rising wave of crime in this society and the government feels that executing about 300 people will send a clear message to armed robbers and violent criminals outside.

SHARP: Shayhu are you saying that the government wants to do this as a deterrent against crime rather than for the stated reason of reducing overcrowding in the prisons?

SANI: Well if you check the crime status in Nigeria for the past 10 to 11 years, it has been almost 100 percent increase.  There have been militancy in the Nile Delta, there have been religious upheavals in the north and recently a former governor lost his life as a result of an encounter with some armed robbers.  So I think it is more of a response to the new wave of crime than it is about clearing the prison system.  Because a prison that has roughly 10,000 inmates, who are not said to be cleared when you only have 300 people out of the system.

SHARP: Were you ever at risk of execution?  Did you fear execution when you were a prisoner?

SANI: I was charged before a military tribunal for treason.  And then I was convicted to life imprisonment, so I had been in prisons with people who had been convicted and on death row and I have been able to interact with most of them.  The trial was simply a sham.  I can’t understand such kind of things happening without a review, to see to it that the justice system was actually followed to the letter before the conviction.

SHARP: So is the idea that these people, had this order not come down, these people would be going through some sort of appeals process and that’s why they’ve been on death row so long?

SANI: There were people who were convicted on death row and they don’t have the resources and the assistance to appeal their cases.  You can’t say that you will execute people who simply could not afford to appeal their cases.

SHARP: And what is the time line?  Have they said when they’ll start these executions?

SANI: Executions, I know something that will be announced before it happens.  It will simply be said it happened.  In my experience as a political prisoner, normally execution takes place on Thursdays and Fridays and – - nobody heard about and you see dead bodies coming out of the prisons.

SHARP: One more question, the governors who have the power to sign these execution orders have also said that there are tens of thousands of prisoners in prison awaiting trial who should be released.  Do you support the release of those prisoners?

SANI: Well the truth of the matter is that the economic crunch, or the economic slump has been making it impossible to fund the prison system.  They feel that this is a way to which they can shed weight.  They will – - go.

SHARP: Shayhu Sani is President of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria.  Thank you very much.

SANI: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.