By Innocent Anaba

LAGOS—As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to celebrate the 64th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human and Peoples Rights, UDHR, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, has called on Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, to ensure that perpetrators of torture and extra-judicial killing were prosecuted.

Chairman on of the group, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi, in a petition in Anambra State, to the AGF on proper criminalisation of torture and extra-judicial killings, said: “At present,the Nigeria’s criminal laws, including the CC, CPA, PC, CPC, Police Act and the Evidence Act, are porous and weak with respect to the foregoing. Relevant provisions in them should be revisited and reworked, bearing in mind the international rights-backed defenses.”

The State-actors must be made to answer for such heinous crimes at all times. Extra-judicial murders should be treated as willful murder and manslaughter respectively depending on the circumstances.

“Penalty for torture as defined by the UN Convention Against Torture, CAT, should be made 14 years imprisonment. As you may know sir, there are no pre-judicial and extra-judicial defenses for torture as defined by CAT. Even in war situations, torturous treatments of enemy-captives are governed by laws of war (Geneva Conventions).”

It also called for adequate protection and compensation by the State to victims and witnesses of violent crimes in the country, noting “As you know, Nigeria has since joined the league of independent countries and occupied territories of the  world as “ the sole prohibitor, prosecutor and punisher” of crimes against persons and properties, which are usually violent in nature.

“As a result, State is now the sole protector of all citizens and punisher of those who engage in the commission of crimes against persons and properties. Citizens including the victims of violent crimes are forbidden by State from avenging for violence meted out to them. One of the main reasons why modern criminal law as Nigeria has it today, frowns at the moribund customary criminal law is because of the latter’s insistence on the archaic doctrines of “self-help” and “trial by ordeal.”

On curbing the endemic corruption in the country, Intersociety, said “there is need for Corruption and Other Corrupt Practices Special Criminal Courts. In addition to  recommending the creation of the foregoing courts with special rules to govern same, penalties for such crimes should be made stiffer (to at least that of burglary).

“Present penalties in the country’s anti graft laws are grossly inadequate and should be revisited with the exception of imposition of death penalty for their gravest categories. Intersociety opposes death-penalty with total vehemence.”