₦airaland Forum

Ishilove:
I think there should be exceptions in cases of banditry, murders and kidnapping.

Human rights activists have been campaigning for the abolition lf the death penalty for a long time. It was a big debate in Nigeria in the 1990s and 2000s. All these foreign NGOs like Amnesty International want the death penalty to be scrapped and for countries that refuse to scrap it to be sanctioned.

They say that innocent people could be executed and that the punishment is cruel.

Many countries have abolished the death penalty in response to the pressure.

I believe that that pressure might have affected some governors in the 2000s, but Governor Oshiomhole said that he would sign the death warrants as long as death penalty was still legal in Nigeria.

On the other hand, many countries (incliding Nigeria) have laws that make cruel and inhuman punishment illegal and human rights activists argue that leaving someone on death row for a long time (in a situation where they know that they will be executed but don't know the exact day) is cruel and inhuman punishment. They have tried to get people on death row freed for this reason.

Ishilove:
What's the name?

It has been long since I've heard of a court ordered execution taking place in the country.

There was a time that there were no executions in Nigeria. This was in the 2000s. Some people said that governors were afraid to sign death warrants, others said that there was an unofficial moratorium on executions.

I've forgotten who made the statement that there were no hangmen in Nigeria anymore and that the last hangman had to be imported from Ghana (remember that people were executed by firing squad during the military era).

However, in response to a crime wave, Governor Adams Oshiomhole vowed to sign the death warrants of the most extreme criminals on death row. He said that it was the work of a governor and that governors cannot shy away from doing their duty.

Therefore, there were executions in Edo State in 2013.

Governor Godwin Obaseki followed in the footsteps of his predecessor and one of his early acts as governor was to sign death warrants, so there were more executions in Edo State in 2016.

I believe that those were the last set of executions in Nigeria.