1981: Nasiru Bello, a little overeagerly

It’s certainly understandable that dilatory appeals leaving it nigh-impossible to actually carry out a meritorious death sentence provoke aggravation.

But as always, one is left in the real sphere of human endeavor to choose among alternatives that each sport their own drawbacks — and where “drawbacks” are no mere debating points but actual lives on the line. After all, even a years-long appellate process that actually results in an execution can go and execute the wrong guy, to say nothing of systems that promise more immediate enforcement.

In a similar vein is the maxim that however adroit the hangman, etiquette forbids him entering the scene before the legally constituted appellate process — of whatever length it may be — has actually run its course. At least that much patience is not merely a virtue but absolutely de rigueur.

On this date thirty-two years ago, Nigeria committed a serious breach of that decorum.

Nasiru Bello, on death row for armed robbery — a crime the recently installed civilian government appeared to be easing off treating as a hanging offense* — was abruptly put to death by Oyo State before a filed and pending appeal could actually be heard by the court.

That’s what you’d call an irreversible error.

Five years later, Bello’s kin won a unanimous Supreme Court judgment against Oyo State for the wrongful execution, which stirringly declared that

“the premature execution of the deceased by the Oyo State Government, while the deceased’s appeal against his conviction was still pending, was not only unconstitutional, but also illegal and unlawful.** By it, the deceased has lost both his right to life and his right to prosecute his appeal.”

And then that same court reduced the plaintiffs’ claimed damages of 100,000 naira to 7,400: about US $1,900 by the local currency’s black market exchange rate. Bello, of course, stayed dead.

* See the 1980 entries in this pdf of Amnesty International reports on Nigeria.

** Unconstitutional, unlawful and illegal here being used in particular, juridically distinct senses. Despite the finding, nobody involved faced criminal sanctions for reasons boiling down to sovereign immunity.

On this day..

One thought on “1981: Nasiru Bello, a little overeagerly

  1. “meritorious death sentence”

    ???

    There’s an obscene oxymoron if ever I read one.

    I thought this site had a neutral policy towards the death penalty? (which, in itself, I find impossible to understand—the life you execute may be your own. The uncorrectable mistake. Not to mention compassion for your fellow humans—but hey, I’m just a bleeding-heart.)

    If death sentences can be “meritorious”, that doesn’t sound neutral At All. Shame!

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