At least 3,298 inmates across the custodial centres in Nigeria are on death row, the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), has revealed.
Its Public Relations Officer, Mr Abubakar Umar, who disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja, however, said that the term ‘condemned criminal’ had been abrogated.
With the emergence of the NCoS Act 2019 which made the prisons correctional centres, the term ‘condemned criminal’ was abrogated as it is stigmatising, he explained.
He said that the service preferred to use a more friendly term of ‘Inmates on Death Row (IDR)’.
He pointed out that death sentences were not always carried out immediately they were imposed.
” There are often long periods of uncertainty for the convicted while their cases are being appealed at higher levels.
” Inmates awaiting execution live on what we call death row; some offenders have been executed more than 15 years after their convictions.
“They were basically awaiting the hangman’s noose in our custodial centres after being found guilty of capital offences.
“We have quite a number of them; as of today, we have a total of 3,298 inmates on death row. They constitute about 4.5 per cent of the total number of inmates in our various custodial centres nationwide,” he disclosed. (NAN)
