A former Military Governor of Old Bendel State, Gen. Jeremiah Useni (rtd), has described as indiscipline the refusal of some state governors to sign the warrant of execution of condemned criminals across the country.
Useni, who is the senator representing Plateau South senatorial district in the National Assembly, made this known in an interview with Saturday Sun.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said in July 2018 that there were 2,359 condemned convicts in prisons across the nation.
Speaking on prison congestion in the country, Useni, who has made known his intention to contest for Governor of Plateau in 2019, said, “There is indiscipline everywhere now; it also means that people don’t take action on certain things and then they keep on colluding.
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“When I was governor in the old Bendel state, the President was complaining about no food to feed prisoners; I said what do you mean? There is no enough food for people and you are talking of prisoners.
“I asked, how many prisoners do we have? They said 200 and I said for what? Those 200 are people condemned.
“Today, nobody is ready to kill anybody condemned but is that how we should run a government?
“I think I killed all of them when I was the governor of Bendel State; I never knew how they killed them. I went to the prison myself and they showed me somewhere, then they put the hanger down and they told me to move out and they pressed something and the place became hollow, which means if I had remained there and they put the hanger and the place remained hollow, three minutes I am gone.
“Even when I was there, some people wrote that some people had behaved very well and asked if I can release them and I said why were they condemned?
“They killed some people and I said if the family of the people they killed said they have forgiven the people, then let them be released. But if somebody comes to write and say they have behaved well, is that how we should do things?
“I said they should be killed; we don’t behave like Judges, if somebody is condemned by the court that he should be killed, he must be killed.”
Asked if he was calling for killing of condemned criminals, he said, “Yes. That is indiscipline again, that is another problem we have because the governors don’t want to take any action.
“They are afraid that if they do so, the parents of those people killed will not vote for them. Then why do we make the law?”