Freedom for Thankgod Ebhos after 19 years on death row

The governor signed the release in exercise of his power of Prerogative of Mercy as outlined under Section 212 of the Nigerian Constitution. Mr Ebhos is one of nine prisoners whose release order was approved to commemorate Nigeria’s 54th Independence Day celebration.
Thankgod was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 1995 and has been on death row for 19 years.
He came into limelight in June 2013 when he narrowly escaped execution alongside the famous four inmates of Benin prison after their death sentence warrants were signed by the Edo State government.
 Thankgod, the fifth inmate, was actually taken to the gallows but was not hanged unlike the four who did not escape the hangman’s noose.
The rough road to Thankgod Ebhos’ release started with the intervention of the international human rights organisation, Avocats Sans Frontieres France (ASF France) on the platform of their death penalty project, Saving Lives (SALI). The pro bono team of SALI lawyers forestalled further threat of execution by immediately filing for an injunction at the ECOWAS community court of justice.
 In February this year, the ECOWAS court ruled in Ebhos’ favour by granting the injunction and ordering the federal government to remove his name from the death row list.
The final judgment from the same court on the 10th of June, 2014, reiterated the order to take off Ebhos’ name from death row. The court at that time stressed that any attempt to execute Thankgod while his appeal was still pending at the Court of Appeal would be a gross violation of his right to appeal as contained in Section 6(4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
In the same vein, the release order of another beneficiary of ASF France’s SALI project has also been signed by the governor.
Sunday Eze Onyeabor was sentenced to death in 1994 and has been on death row for 20 years. Both Thankgod Ebhos and Sunday Eze have appeals pending at the Court of Appeal.
Families of the released convicts expressed joy at the news. Thankgod Ebhos’ son, Ebhodaghe Solomon, spoke about the challenges he went through in the process of appealing for help with his father’s case,
“It has been a very long process, he said. Some lawyers and organisations that I took my father’s case to promised to help but nothing came out of it even after they had collected money.
“ASF France handled my father’s case like it was a family matter. The way someone would fight for their family that is the way they took my father’s case,” he said.
Arinze Georgina, Mr. Eze’s niece was equally appreciative of the effort ASF France put into handling her uncle’s case.
Avocats Sans Frontieres France commended the governor of Kaduna State, Ramalan Yero, for this gesture and urged neighbouring Katsina State government to consider following suit in the case of Maimuna Abdulmumini, a Saving Lives beneficiary who was sentenced to death as a minor.
ASF France Head of Office, Angela Uwandu, said, the death penalty is absolutist in nature, and should be totally expunged from our laws.
She said: “Thankgod Ebhos’ release today underscores the impact that the decision of the ECOWAS court could have on the status of death row inmates. If Thankgod Ebhos had been executed prior to the judgment of the ECOWAS court, his execution would have been irrevocable and the chance to experience this freedom would have been lost.”