3,689 prisoners on death row nationwide

By our Reporter

3,689 prisoners are waiting for execution in correctional centers having been sentenced to death by various courts across the country.

The acting Comptroller General of Nigeria Correctional Service, Sylvester Nwakuche, revealed this at a meeting with the Senate Committee on Interior Affairs.

He said that the reason for the increase was that state governors refused to sign death warrants for their execution.

He stressed that the state governors did not also commute their death sentences to life imprisonment.

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Nwakuche explained that if the governors commute the death sentences to life imprisonment, it would be easier for them to be distributed to rural correctional facilities which were not as congested as those in urban areas.

He also disclosed that the majority
of prison inmates were awaiting trials because the justice system in the country was very slow.

” Some of the awaiting trial inmates have stayed up to five to six years “. He said.