Through the online platform Zoom, Judge Mojisola Dada has sentenced Nigerian driver Olalekan Hameed to death for the murder of his employer’s mother, something that Human Rights Watch is calling “inherently cruel and inhumane”.

The Monday meeting held on the platform was virtually attended by lawyers, amongst them the attorney general as well. Aside from lawyers, numerous witnesses and journalists also attended the three-hour meeting from different locations.

This was also the first day of relieving some lockdown restrictions in Lagos, with residents now able to return to work under strict instructions, including mandatory face masks and social distancing. However, any court meetings that are not urgent remain suspended.

President Muhammad Buhari has called for a swift trial of cases as well as the decongestion of prisons and detention centers in order to further prevent the spread of COVID-19. Buhari also informed the public that 52,226 of the 74,127 (roughly 70.45%) prisoners in the country were still awaiting a trial.

Hameed, from Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison, was sentenced to death. Back in December 2018, he had pleaded not guilty to killing 76-year-old Jolasun Okunsanya. It is unclear if he will appeal his most recent sentence.

Celestina Olulode, a BBC reporter, states that state governors have to approve death sentences before they can be carried out, under Nigerian law. Although the death penalty is not commonly carried out in Nigeria, there still exists numerous courts that impose the sentence.

There has reportedly been a “spike” in death sentences throughout the country, consistently putting Nigeria at odds with the international community’s movement towards the abolition of said penalty, according to Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

Amnesty International said that the number of death sentences in sub-Saharan Africa recorded a 53% increase between 2018 and 2019, Nigeria being one of the countries with an increase. The organization also reports that at the end of 2019, 5,731 people were on death row in the same region, and 65% of that total came from Kenya and Nigeria alone.

HRW said that the establishment of a virtual court during this pandemic showed determination to applying justice, but that the judiciary was transferring within the mistaken route by sentencing to death by hanging.

“The irreversible punishment is archaic, inherently cruel and inhuman, it should be abolished.”

Human Rights Watch

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