http://books.google.com.br/books?

id=Lf1thlRTUGcC&pg=PT160&lpg=PT160& dq=Odu+do+ano++Ogunda+Irosun&source=bl&ots=Bbb9WFTK5D&sig=DN9 m8T1OYNqziHGemSGXo-GlujA&hl=pt BR&sa=X&ei=y6jxUPGIG4XbrAGirIA4&ved=0CHQQ6AEwBw

GND-IROSUN gnd no faz ofensa, gnd no causa dor no bom punir gnd! Foram os primeiros que lanavam para Olowo no dia em que ele estava falando em fazer sacrifcio para no ser punido ao longo de toda sua vida. Eles disseram-lhe que nunca em sua vida Olowo seria punido. Olowo perguntou muito feliz. Qual o sacrifcio? Um pombo, um carneiro, 4.400 cauwries. Olowo ouviu e fez o sacrifcio. Sempre honrar e respeitar as outras pessoas so o melhor que se pode fazer para no ser punido, o filho de homem honrado. Uma rvore honrada em sua forma complicada; albinos so honrados por causa de Obtl. Todos vocs, honrem-me. ========================================================= Texto Jornal de Filosofia. http://www6.miami.edu/ethics/jpsl/archives/all/AfricanCapitalPunishment.html An Indigenous Yoruba - African Philosophical Argument Against Capital Punishmenti [1] Dr. Moses k* * Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Obafemi Awolowo University , Ile-Ife , Nigeria , E-Mail:

O argumento Yorb indgena que estar aqui articulado encontrado em If, [7], o compndio de Yoruba antiga sabedoria e cultura primria. Ela pode ser encontrada na parte do If intitulado Od gnd-rsn. [8] A passagem

relevante temtica no Od, com importao filosfica para o presente propsito : Or yye n Mgu, K r l p nb. D fu gnd, t y peran, T y fj y rsn lnu. If w p Ire k. If w p Klni rb, K wn m ti rn mo ls o. (I.e. "H muitas cabeas no Santurio gn [ou, na cidade mtica chamada Mogun.] Muitas cabeas so de pessoas inocentes. Foi lanado If para gnd, Quem poderia matar um animal, Irosun mancha sua boca com seu sangue O orculo de If prescreve um sacrifcio, para que algum falsamente acusado e condenado. Isso quer dizer que a maioria das pessoas a quem tinham sido dadas a pena capital na comunidade no mereciam ter sido executadas. Esta alegao elaborada no Od com a seguinte histria. Em uma cidade mtica viviam dois irmos, gnd e rsn. Havia tambm o rei e outros moradores. No caminho para a fazenda, os dois irmos passavam pelo santurio de gn, que servia como local de execuo pblica e que estava, portanto, sempre cheio de muitas cabeas humanas. Um dia, eles passavam pelo santurio, gnd observou que a maioria das cabeas do santurio era de pessoas que no eram culpadas de qualquer crime punvel de tanta severidade. Seu irmo se ops, argumentando que todos que foram decapitados no santurio devem ter merecido a pena capital. O debate entre os dois irmos continuou por um longo tempo, com rsn mantendo que "se foi punido por que culpado", enquanto gnd sustentava que "punio no implica em confirmar ou estabelecer uma culpa". No caminho de sua casa, gnd construiu mentalmente uma possvel situao em que uma pessoa inocente seria condenada por um crime com a pena capital, como em um filme, haveria negao de justia, ou um procedimento judicial falho. Na histria, o rei tinha um bode de estimao, favorito, que era tratado como um membro humano da famlia real. Ele foi bem alimentado e lhe foi dado o respeito real por todos na cidade. Um dia, gnd aprisionou o bode. Ele esperou at que a noite casse e seu irmo fosse dormir, depois de ficar muito bbado. Ele, ento, abateu o bode, deixando seu sangue fazer uma trilha at a entrada do quarto de
2

seu irmo, onde ele depositou o bode morto aps manchar a boca do homem e deix-lo dormir com seu sangue. Ele foi mais longe colocar a cabea do bode na boca de rsn. Quando o bode foi declarado desaparecido na manh seguinte, o rei enviou seus servos para procur-lo, prometendo que quem tinha mantido o bode em sua custdia e no falar se feriu ou matou o bode, sofreria pena de morte. Seguindo uma dica de gnd, os servos do rei encontraram o bode morto na entrada do quarto de rsn. Eles tambm perceberam as manchas de sangue na roupa de rsn e em sua boca. Ele foi acordado e obrigado a levar o bode morto em sua cabea at o palcio do rei, onde os habitantes da cidade e um jri j estavam espera do julgamento do suposto assassino do bode favorito do rei. O caso foi rapidamente resolvido, j que havia uma enorme preponderncia de provas contra o acusado, sem um argumento que lhe desse nenhum apoio. Como fora decretado pelo rei, a pena era a morte por decapitao no santurio de gn. Quando rsn estava sendo levado para o santurio, gnd surgiu e pediu permisso do rei para dizer alguma coisa. Ele declarou para a consternao das pessoas que foi ele, e no rsn, que havia o bode do rei. Ele ainda informou ao pblico que ele havia incriminado seu irmo a fim de provar que muitos dos que anteriormente haviam sido executados no santurio de gn foram possivelmente inocentes das acusaes feitas contra eles e foram condenados. Por extenso, ele queria mostrar por que a pena capital era ruim e por isso deveria ser interrompida na cidade. A submisso de gnd foi bem recebida pelo rei e pelas pessoas da cidade, especialmente porque ele era uma pessoa respeitada e supostamente um sbio da comunidade. A apresentao tambm parecia estar de acordo com o pensamento desarticulado ou no expressado na reflexo dos membros da comunidade que, por vezes, que haviam executado pessoas inocentes judicialmente. O rei, em sua reflexo, tambm ficou convencido do ponto de vista de Ogunda e se arrependeu de todas as sentenas de morte que ele havia ordenado e mandado executar no passado. Ele percebeu que outra pessoa inocente teria sido morta por engano, se a verdade no tivesse sido revelada de forma voluntaria depois de seu julgamento. Ou seja, supondo que a execuo da sentena do condenado deveria ser imediata e irreversvel, uma pessoa inocente teria sido executada, enquanto o culpado iria embora, ficaria no anonimato sem ser detectado. Assim, ao perceber que por uma variedade de razes, qualquer caso pode ser provado contra uma pessoa, mesmo quando esta pessoa inocente de qualquer delito, ento, o rei decidiu que rsn, o condenado, deveria ser posto em liberdade. Fim da histria.

A histria utilizada neste trabalho explica o texto publicado do Od gnd no formato comprimido do livro de If corpus literrio, conhecido como Dezesseis cawuris/rndnlgn (Bascom 1980). No entanto, no h diferena significativa entre este texto documentado e as narrativas verbais do Od, como dado pela prtica dos Sacerdotes de If [9], utilizando o formato do livro mais extenso com 256 Od If e seu corpus literrio (que compreende os 16 Od principais, conhecidos como Oju Od e os 240 Od derivados, conhecidos como m Od / ml-ml Od, onde esta histria ocorre no Od gnd-rosn. No entanto, devido natureza multi-dialtica da lngua yorb, pode haver diferentes interpretaes lricas e estilsticas em um texto de If, mas o contedo essencial de qualquer verso do Od If constante entre os sacerdotes e sacerdotisas treinados, embora, os sacerdotes/sacerdotisas, nem todos sabem o mesmo nmero de versos de qualquer Od ou de todos os Od If. A parte do versculo de If utilizada neste trabalho: Or Yy n mogun; ts l Ju. popular e de fato, tornar-se um conhecido ditado entre os iorubs, embora no possa ser demostrada ou como foi dito, muitos dos que usam esta passagem proverbialmente compreendem plenamente a histria de fundo e/ou a sua importao legal / jurisprudencial / filosfica, porque a maioria dos sacerdotes e sacerdotisas If e outros tambm, no se envolvem no tipo filosfico da reflexo crtica sobre o documento cultural que If . (Abmbl 2006: xix). Algumas perguntas podem surgir neste momento, embora no sejam a preocupao imediata da presente discusso. Duas das tais questes so: O que aconteceu com gnd depois de sua confisso? O que o rei teria feito se tivesse sido o seu filho, esposa ou outra pessoa assassinada em vez de seu bode favorito? Alm disso, precisa ser enfatizado que o ponto filosfico do Od gnd rsn no sua rejeio pela punio pela m conduta, mas uma rejeio de um determinado tipo de punio, a saber, a pena capital. Portanto, razovel dizer que a abolio da pena capital, em uma sociedade que ainda recorre a outras penas no capitais como tipos de punio que vo, razoavelmente, permitir futura inverso de julgamento, no caso de provas atenuantes e com credibilidades. Isso vai ser um reconhecimento do fato de que uma pessoa supostamente inocente que no momento crucial no possa provar sua inocncia, agora, por um motivo ou outro, poder ainda ser capaz de prov-la agora ou prova-la no futuro. Em tais casos o destinatrio inocente da punio sofreria apenas por sua incapacidade de estabelecer sua inocncia, que um dever de si mesmo.
4

Embora o sistema de apelao judicial oferea alguma esperana, no h nenhuma garantia de que cada presidirio inocente seja capaz de provar sua inocncia nos nveis de apelao de qualquer sistema judicial, especialmente no caso de condenados vulnerveis, como rsn Obbado.

3. Anlise filosfica do argumento

gndrs enfatiza a possibilidade sempre presente de erro no processo judicial. Ele demonstra a possibilidade terica da justia ser abortada em todas as ocasies. O Od introduz um aspecto de ceticismo epistemolgico (nada do que foi provado seria verdade) em jurisprudncia. Ele baseado na tese de que no podemos estar absolutamente certos (no sentido de ter tido todas as provas relevantes, de modo que todas as dvidas razoveis foram eliminadas) de qualquer reclamao ou verdade que diz respeito a questes de fato e de existncia. Alm disso, mostra-se que, relativamente aos fatos de um caso, no existe qualquer limite terico para provas relevantes perante a lei (k &Amodu, 2006: 160). Por isso, todo julgamento deve deixar espao para uma possvel reverso sem perda extra para o condenado em caso de possvelmente o futuro exonerar alguma evidncia. Tal reverso no ser possvel quando o condenado j estiver condenado morte. Assim, no pensamento indgena reflexo do yorb, como apresentado no Od If chamado gnd - rsn, a pena capital no a melhor opo e deveria ser abolida, no importa quo grave a ofensa alegada. Embora o argumento contra a pena de morte neste documento seja baseado em uma passagem do texto sagrado da cultura yorb, o argumento, a fim de que seja plausvel, no requer nem inclui referncia vontade ou comando de uma divindade, ou alguma outra doutrina religiosa ou liminar, como se a pena de morte devesse ser abolida porque Deus ou algum outro dogma da religio probe, ou que a ira divina se abateria sobre quem aplicou a pena de morte. Em vez disso, atravs do emprego de "O mtodo de raciocnio dedutivo da filosofia Africana" (Okafor 2006:42), foi possvel articular, uma no teolgica e uma no religiosa verso, de um argumento contra a pena capital neste Od If. Em particular, a assinatura Yorb de viso do mundo ou sua religiosidade, no uma condio precedente para uma avaliao do argumento epistemolgico de gnd. Em outras palavras, o argumento de gnd contra a pena de morte

pode subsistir sem perda de plausibilidade fora de qualquer contexto particular, religioso ou metafsico. O argumento articulado a partir da histria baseia-se inteiramente na razo humana e as observaes empricas por pessoas (aqui representada por gnd e seu irmo rsn tanto que foram descritos como prncipes, em uma antiga comunidade, especificamente humana chamada Mogun). A este respeito, de se notar que If no exclusivamente um texto religioso. Como observado por Maulana Karenga (1999: iii): O If Od um corpus de textos sagrados destinados essencialmente para responder s perguntas da vida humana atravs do processo de adivinhao. Mas, como o Awise Wande Abimbola apontou em suas obras seminais sobre o Od, eles contm uma riqueza de conhecimentos e ensinamentos na esfera de vrios campos, incluindo arte, literatura, medicina, histria, religio e tica. Od If tambm tem sido descrito como um repositrio de conhecimento e uma enciclopdia da cultura Yoruba (Makinde, 0,1983), bem como "a sabedoria antiga" do povo Yoruba (Makinde, 1985: 58). Na opinio do Kola Abimbola (Abimbola 2006: xviii), If o "Texto Sagrado principal do indigena" yorb, que "muitos especialistas dentro da sociedade Tradicional Yorb (e contempornea)" utilizado de "uma forma hermenutica" para produzir cultural filosofica quando eles a interpretarem, analisarem, avaliarem e comentarem sobre os poemas contidos no If Od de forma crtica e reflexiva. A perspectiva de cada especialista, portanto, determina o seu foco de envolvimento com o "" documento "cultural". Kola Abimbola foca sobre If como "o texto sagrado da religio yorb" (ibid, 28), por exemplo, o ponto de vista foi influenciado por "que s poderemos compreender verdadeiramente os yorb se entendermos o papel do religioso e do espiritual em sua cultura ". Da o seu envolvimento com If era "identificar as propriedades religiofilosficas que unificam as diferentes manifestaes desta cultura... das idias filosficas que formam a base das prticas da religio iorub nas sociedades contemporneas" (ibid: 33). Assim, como o Corpus Literrio de If contm idias filosficas que fundamentam as prticas da religio iorub, de modo que este Corpus, tambm contm idias filosficas que poderiam ser articuladas a partir dele, que fundamentam outros aspectos da vida, incluindo a lei nas sociedades tradicionais e contemporneas. Gbadegesin (1991: 76) muito explcito quanto a este ponto. Ele diz: " verdade que as idias mais importantes religiosa e moral dos iorubs esto contidas no Corpus de If. Mas, como evidente, mesmo para os tradicionalistas, If no apenas uma religio. , como Abimbola coloca, ele tambm "um sistema literrio e filosfico".
6

Abimbola (1971: 73-89) goes further to describe If as the store-house of Yorb culture inside which the Yorb comprehension of their own historical experiences and understanding of their environment can always be found. We cannot sustain, therefore, with respect to If, the supposition of a necessary connection between every African ethics-related discourse and religion as had been maintained by some notable African scholars.ii [10] Arguments against the supposition of a necessary connection between religion and ethics in African cultures, and for a humanistic thesis of social ethics in African cultures, had been persuasively advanced by many eminent African scholars.iii [11] gnds argument could thus be regarded as a non-religious rational discourse that happens to occur within a particular Yorb tradition-protected (sacred) cultural text. As such, the argument from If could readily find contemporary relevance and applicability in any other cultural context. In order fully to appreciate the universal relevance and applicability of the Yorb indigenous argument against capital punishment discussed above, all that is required is a critical consideration of its empirical basis and logic. Empirically, it is true that miscarriage of justice does occur in all jurisdictions even after all due care had been taken and all appellate avenues exhausted. Logically, since no one knows which case would involve or would not involve a miscarriage of justice, such as a wrongful conviction, all judicial verdicts are inherently fallible. Although gnds epistemological argument against death sentence has been re-constructively articulated from the Yorb (African) cultural context, it could acquire a universal relevance. The possibility of error in human judgment of matters of fact and existence is universally acknowledged as an inherent part of our human nature (Ayer 1956: 39-40; Ayer 1981: 63; & Popkin 1967: 449 - 460). This universal human fallibility, particularly in judicial matters, is what gnds heroic effort in the story from If Literary Corpus above sought to demonstrate in a dramatic way in Od gnd-rsn. Epistemologically, wherever and whenever the possibility of error cannot be completely eliminated, thereof human beings ought to be cautious, if they cannot be silent, by way of being circumspect in every judgment on the ground that evidence is yet inconclusive either for or against the case at hand. In law, this leads to the view that for judicial proof, there is no theoretical limit to evidence (k & Amodu, 2006:160). Hence, it is a sound argument that every society should abolish any form of punishment that tends to suggest that all possible evidence relevant to a case had been obtained, presented, and considered such that any future revision or reversal of the consequent verdict in the case is ruled out, as in the case of death sentences. Although gnd-rsn does not overtly allude to it, its abolitionist argument on death sentence is better appreciated in the context of its cultural social ethic.
7

So situated, as would be done below, the thrust of gnds epistemological argument for the abolition of death penalty is a call on the community to live up to its responsibility to its members in conformity with its avowed view of humanity as contained in Yorb social ethic. Yorb social ethic is characterized by a communal humanism that emphasizes the interdependence of the individual and the community. In Gbadegesins expression, The purpose of individual existence is intricately linked with the purpose of social existence, and cannot be adequately grasped outside it. individuality and community thus become intertwined (Gbadegesin, 1991:58). The interdependence between individuals and the community requires that the individual should be committed to the sustenance of his or her community as much as the community should be committed to the preservation of the life of all its members. Human beings are thus conceived in indigenous Yorb culture as the ultimate agents for the continued existence of the community (Gbadegesin, ibid.), in virtue of which they are endowed with an inherent individual worth, such as is not accorded to other beings in nature. It is on the basis of their unique conception of the human being that the Yorb within their traditional and indigenous culture understood the universality of human rights. recognized and defended human rights, and had institutional measures to ensure that these rights are enforced, protected and proclaimed in culture, custom and tradition (Bewaji, 2006: 51). In Yorb indigenous culture, therefore, the community has a duty to protect the humanity of all persons, irrespective of the circumstances of their lives or their social pedigrees. Thus, even when certain inadequacies or deficiencies are noted or alleged in particular individuals, the principle of universal humanity still requires that the essential dignity, the inherent worth of such persons be acknowledged, protected and respected in meting out any social sanction on them. The existence of social arrangements to assess and deal with those who fall short or are alleged to fall short of social expectations or who violate social rules in Yorb culture does not mean that their humanity is in any way compromised (Bewaji, ibid.). As such, when humanity is being considered, Yorb indigenous culture does not discriminate between the accused, the convict, and the righteous. In its conception of humanity, Yorb indigenous culture shares an essential similarity with the views of other human cultures, notably those of cultures of modern societies, which have culminated in the 1948 United Nations Charter of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in contemporary cultures highlights the need to have equality of respect and treatment for the humanity of all humans (Bewaji, ibid. 51; 64), irrespective of the diversities of their existential circumstances, perfections, and shortcomings.

For the Yorb, in their indigenous culture, of all the rights that humans have by virtue of their being humans and for no other reason except this (Bewaji, ibid. 51), the most fundamental, in terms of making the other rights not only possible but also meaningful, is the right to life. The ultimacy of the right to life is expressed in the following Yorb sayings: m lj (Life is the most important); B k, se k tn (If we are not dead, we still have roles to play; m ggn l sny (It is a long life that compensates for suffering); and ni t k ni tir ta (Only the dead has forfeited all that he or she has, including rights, humanity and essential worth). Thus, as rightly noted by Bewaji (ibid. 62), for the Yorb, life is valuable in itself. For the Yorb, therefore, human life ought not to be deliberately taken, as is done in death penalty, for any reason whatsoever. It is for this reason that the community ought not to follow the way of the murderer through the use of the punishment of death on its members for offences against the community. When the foregoing discussion is linked to the Yorb indigenous argument against death penalty, gnd appears to have reasoned that the existence or retention of death sentence in Yorb society was at variance with the foundational humanist principles of Yorb culture (Gbadegesin, 1991: 61 82). More specifically, gnds reasoning appears to be that the primacy of human life, in the context of an avowal of a communal duty of unconditional protection of every persons right to life in Yorb culture, is intolerably compromised by a judicial system that allows the society to kill people for offenses committed or allegedly committed against the society. gnds intolerance for the compromise is exacerbated by the demonstrated constant possibility logical and empirical of wrongful innocent conviction of an accused person at any level of the judiciary. On the 14th of May 2007, for instance, a Nigerian daily newspaper, (The Nation), reported the pathetic story of two policemen, Simon Edibo and Sunday Ndidi, who spent 17 years on death row before they were freed of the charge of armed robbery and murder for which they were condemned to death by the High Court of Delta State, which verdict was confirmed by the Appeal Court. Unfortunately, before The Supreme Court could set aside the judgments of the lower courts, one of the convicts, Sunday Ndidi, had died on the death row. The injustice always occasioned by the occurrence of a miscarriage of justice, such as in a wrongful conviction, is what gnd in his argument in gndrsn wanted to see abolished in his society. In this regard, it is to be noted that in Yorb indigenous culture, injustice to one is injustice to all members of the society (Bewaji, op.cit: 64), as is aptly expressed in the following Yorb proverbial sayings. rn t se Abyad, gbogbo lya l se (whatever is plaguing a member of the community of Oyas devotees, (i.e. devotees of the Yorb River Deity) is plaguing every member of that community of devotees);
9

Ik t pa ojgb ni, we l pa fn ni (the death that is consuming ones peers is proverbially warning of ones own impending similar death); Ohun t bj, l bm (whatever affects the eyes affects the nose); and ni t k k, k m ik t m a pun (the living are ignorant of the manner of their death). It is in the interest of everyone, therefore, and the duty of everyone as well, to see to the abolition of any form of punishment, such as death sentence, that violates the essential dignity of any human being, no matter how grievous the alleged offence or how obvious the guilt of the accused might seem. Otherwise, such punishment is awaiting everyone else in the society where it was not abolished. As the Yorb say psn t a fi nyl b lj fn yw (the cane that was used to beat the senior wife is waiting in the ceiling for the junior wife) The above outlined cultural context, housing gnds argument for the abolition of death sentence, finds a broader expression in an indigenous African social ethic that is discernible among the Akans of Western Africa (Busia, 1962: 33; Gyekye, 1987: 155), and many Bantu societies of Southern Africa The panAfrican social ethic under reference is conceptualized as Ubuntu in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa (Panse), and has been described as a traditional African philosophy that offers us an understanding of ourselves in relation with the world and defines what it means to be truly human (ibid). It is regarded as a traditional African concept, a sub-Saharan ethos or humanist ideology focusing on peoples allegiances and relations with each other (Wikipedia). As advanced by Tutu (Wikipedia), and discussed by Teffo (1998: 240 241), the central point of Ubuntu is that human beings are inextricably connected to one another in concrete, rather than abstract, ways, such that the humanity of one is defined by the humanity of the other person and by membership of a community. Ubuntu, as Teffo describes it, is a social ethic, a unifying vision enshrined in the Zulu maxim: umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye (one is a person through others). According to Bishop Tutu, Ubuntu is the essence of being human that makes or perhaps should make people open and available to others, willing to be vulnerableknow that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are (Tutu, Wikipedia) In his further characterization of Ubuntu, Teffo (ibid.) presents it as an indigenous African humanist ideology. He observes that from the Ubuntu perspective, African societies placed a high value on human worth, but it was a humanism that found expression in a communal context rather than in the individualism of the West. Explaining further, Teffo says, Ubuntu or humanness implies a basic respect for human nature. This Ubuntu humanness is seen in a persons relationship with other members of his/her family or community. In such relationship, for a person with Ubuntu, The dignity, safety, prosperity, health and development of all
10

people is the most important priority. Moral judgment is thus based on how humane a persons behavior is towards other human beings. As succinctly put by Ahianzu (2006: 33), Ubuntu is about people and more importantly about relationships between people. Thus, an UBUNTU view of life is synonymous with concepts such as cooperation, mutual respect and support as well as unity within the community (Teffo, ibid, 240). Hence, if as Tutu says of Ubuntu, We belong in a bundle of life (Tutu, ibid; also Thabo Mbeki, 2001: 9; Louw, 2001:15; and Nussbaum, 2001: 4.), then we need, as a community, and as individuals, to be considerately and consistently open, rather than finalistic, in our opinions and judgments of ourselves and other fellow human beings. Placed in the wider context of Ubuntu, gnds argument for the abolition of death penalty in traditional Yorb society was based on the view that human societys judicial and penal systems ought to be humane in conformity with a due recognition of an ever-fallible humanity. gnds argument was that the African cultural avowal of communal protection of everyones human rights and respect for the human dignity of all, was patently not in sync with either the policy or the practice of judicially killing offenders or alleged offenders in the community, especially when it was granted that the judicial system was always vulnerable to error. 4. CONCLUSION The above jurisprudential conclusion does not preclude the divinatory signification of Od gnd- rsn; rather it complements it. Divinatorily, the Od, in the portion of it used in this paper, signifies the imminence of an injustice or a miscarriage of justice, or that such injustice or miscarriage of justice had actually taken place. Whichever is the case, the Od goes further to prescribe how to prevent or redress the injustice or miscarriage of justice. The details of this aspect are parts of the If practitioners professional trade secrets. It is to be noted that this indigenous argument is not based strictly on moral grounds. This is because its conclusion does not arise solely from a moral evaluation of capital punishment. The rejection of capital punishment is also not just from a practical or pragmatic or teleological or some other consequentialist consideration. This is because the argument does not claim that capital punishment is bad, unjustifiable or undesirable because of the practical or utilitarian reason that it never achieves its intended purpose or purposes such as deterrence and psychosocial balance. Similarly, the rejection is not based on metaphysical considerations such as that human nature forbids the killing of persons, or that human life, simpliciter, is sacred and so should never be taken by anyone for any reasons whatsoever, etc. It is also noteworthy that the If argument, although extracted from a sacred text, is not a religious or a theological one. It is a secular argument based entirely on empirical human
11

observation and logical reasoning within a humanist social ethic. Its premises make no reference to God, the will of God, the judgment of God, or post-life existence in support of the conclusion that capital punishment is inherently objectionable. Finally, it is to be noted that unlike the classical humanitarian argument against the death penalty, the point of gnd - rsn is not just that capital punishment is cruel, wicked and inhuman. Yet, in spite of the above, this objection to capital punishment in If is neither a casual nor a flimsy pedestrian expression of a wish, ideal or opinion. Rather, it is a strong argument arising from a skeptical epistemological standpoint with sharp ethical and legal implications, and demonstrated in a logical and scientific way. The argument has also extensionally involved the Yorb social ethical context within which it arose and which made its jurisprudential thrust better appreciated. Beyond its immediate Yorb context, the discussion has been extended to the larger pan-African indigenous socio-ethical perspective known as Ubuntu, a communal humanist ethical standpoint that is dominant in many traditional African societies and is considered relevant in the contemporary world. As put by Ahiauzu (op. cit: 36), Ubuntu embodies a fundamental aspect of the way Africans see themselves and their relationships with others, the ethos of which, in the opinion of Teffo (op. cit: 241), is one single gift that African philosophy can bequeath to other philosophies of the world, in particular Western philosophy. On a meta-discourse level, the discussion in this paper complements the point that many have sought to make against the tendency to deny the existence and possibility of African jurisprudence and thus to exclude African texts from the body of classical texts in law and philosophy of law. In particular, it substantiates, in a factual way, and gives empirical fiber to Idowus (2001, 2004, 2006) recent theoretical challenges of the exclusion of indigenous African thought from the cannons of jurisprudential literature.

12