National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
FOLAKE SOKOYA
The Centre forAnti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has said the judiciary is appearingto be firming up in its responsibility to dispense justice againstcriminalities as two former police officers involved in the killing of two ofsix Igbo traders in APO Quarters, Abuja in 2005 (APO six) were sentenced forculpable homicide.
The Executive Chairman,CACOL, Debo Adeniran, who spoke on behalf of the Centre in an initial reactionto the sentencing, expressed mixed feelings, saying, “although this is greatnews given that justice has finally been dispensed as it concerns two of thekiller cops, we as an organization have been always been part of the advocacyfor the eradication of death penalties as a punitive.”
“It is a laudableachievement after almost 12 years of continuous adjournments in the face of theunimaginable trauma of families of the victims while investigations and anunnecessarily prolonged prosecution. That justice has finally prevailed withthe conviction of the two policemen; Ezekiel Acheneje and Emmanuel Baba of theAPO killings is welcomed. However, even though the county’s constitutionpermits death penalties for some criminal acts, we contend that it has notproven to be the best punitive anywhere in the world.”
“This is becauseoffences for which death penalties applied have really decreased the number ofoccurrences of such crimes. This indicates that hardly does death penalty detercriminals. Instead, we have always recommende .
