Nigeria Executes Four Prisoners

The BBC Africa News reports that four persons have been executed in Benin City after President Goodluck Jonathan recently asked state governors to sign death warrants in an effort to reduce crime.

According to the justice commissioner for the state of Edo, Henry Idahagbon, the executed prisoners had been convicted of armed robbery or murder.

There are currently more than 1,000 prisoners in Nigeria who are believed to be on death row.

Amnesty International said the executions represented "a truly dark day for human rights" in Nigeria. "If confirmed, these executions mark a sudden, brutal return to the use of the death penalty in Nigeria, a truly dark day for human rights in the country," its deputy director for Africa, Lucy Freeman, said in a statement.

Mr Idahagbon said the four men were hanged at Benin City Prison after a court had ordered their executions on Monday afternoon.

He said all their appeals had been exhausted and their death warrants had been signed - two by Edo Governor Adams Oshiomhole, and the others by governors of other states.

Although capital punishment remain a valid option in the nigeria legal space, it is a return to a barbarous style of reformation and penalization.

I beg Mr. president to look for other means to decongest the prison instead of relying on killing off albeit murderous and criminally minded citizens. other means to decongest the prison system the president can obviously institute will be to achieve effective and an efficient justice system that thrive on human rights, equity, fairness, speedy trial and due process. If this tenets of justice are followed, it will decongest the prison of all the accused and suspects awaiting trial who have already spent more years in prison than the crime they are accused of merit.

What other ways can Nigerian prisons be decongested? Please use the comment section below and let us know. Peace. Out.