Nigeria's rights commission and five embassies call for an end to the death penalty
More than 3,000 people are on death row in Nigeria, which will reach ten years without an execution in December.
PANM — Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission and several foreign embassies have called on the country to abolish the death penalty, Premium Times reports.
The call came on Friday at an event marking the World Day Against the Death Penalty.
More than 3,000 people are held on death row in Nigeria, many of them for long periods. The country has not carried out an execution in almost ten years and will pass that mark in December.
What the commission wants
The commission's executive secretary, Tony Ojukwu, was represented by its director of legal services, Rabir Anwar. He urged the government to repeal section 312 of the constitution and section 122 of the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, and to commute death sentences to life imprisonment.
Diplomats from Australia, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Italy took part, as did the Nigerian Bar Association, the Nigerian Correctional Service and the legal aid group Avocats Sans Frontières France.
Sixteen years
Among the speakers was Amanda Arthur, 21, whose parent, Angel Arthur, spent 16 years in prison before being taken off the execution list.
Amnesty International counted 145 countries that had abolished the death penalty as of 2025.
This report is based on reporting by Premium Times.
