Paul Osuyi, Asaba
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, on Thursday, in Asaba, advocated the abolition of death sentence in Nigeria, saying that the global community is moving away from such capital punishment.
Speaking when he received members of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy led by Mr. William Alo, the governor contended that Nigeria as a major player in international community should consider the option of doing away with death penalties.
His words, “We need to ask ourselves if death sentence is still relevant in our society? In many states, many Governors are not ready to sign the death warrant, why are they not signing the death warrant? The world is moving away from death sentence.”
While decrying the overpopulation of Nigerian prisons, Okowa urged the federal government to improve on the facilities in the prisons.
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“We need to evolve measures that will make Nigerian Prisons to be truly reformatory centres, so that ex-convicts can be better citizens.
“There is no doubt that most of our prisons are crowded, even in Delta State, there is the need to have reforms that will change the mind of the prisoners for them to be useful to the society.
“I pray that the committee keeps this advocacy on what to do to carry out reforms to make prisoners come out as better persons.
“We need to make them see life differently and acquire skills to live better life after imprisonment, we need to have a total rethink to carry out a total reformation of prisoners because if we reform their lives and does not provide skills, many of them will return to their old ways,” he added.
Earlier, Mr. Alo had said they were on advocacy visit to prisons in the state, adding that it was important for suggestions to be made on how to improve on the services in the Nigerian Prisons.