NHRC and foreign missions urge Nigeria to end death penalty

The National Human Rights Commission and foreign diplomatic missions have called on Nigeria to abolish the death penalty and formalise a halt to executions.

They made the appeal at the commission’s Abuja headquarters on Friday, ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10.

NHRC executive secretary Tony Ojukwu, represented by legal services and enforcement director Rabir Anwar, said the country should turn its period without executions into an official moratorium. Premium Times reported the remarks.

Ojukwu said Nigeria would reach 10 consecutive years without a state execution in December, while more than 3,000 people remained on death row. These were figures presented by the commission at the event.

Australian High Commissioner Leilani Bin-Juda said her country opposed capital punishment in all circumstances. She encouraged Nigeria to formalise its halt to executions or reduce the offences for which death sentences could be imposed.

Spanish ambassador Felix Costales Arteida said death sentences were irreversible and left no opportunity to correct a judicial error after an execution.

Lorena Moore, representing the German ambassador, said the need for justice should not be answered by taking another life. Avocats Sans Frontières France country head Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu said capital punishment disproportionately affected poor people.

Comptroller Olufemi Oluyemi, representing the Nigerian Correctional Service’s leadership, spoke about officers’ daily contact with death-row prisoners and their families. He said the service would carry out its responsibilities professionally and in accordance with the law, whatever direction the policy debate took.

The event’s theme was “Stories for Life: the human cost of capital punishment”. Amanda Arthur, daughter of death-row survivor Angel Arthur, described how her father’s imprisonment and removal from the execution list continued to affect the family.

Source: Premium Times