African leaders must challenge secret executions in Nigeria

African leaders should challenge the Nigerian government over its secret executions revealed in a report by Amnesty International, a human rights worker has said. Amnesty International revealed earlier this week that secret executions have been taking place in Nigeria’s prisons, despite recent assurances by the government that Nigeria has not executed “in years.”

The organisation uncovered evidence of at least seven executions in the last two years, but fears more may have taken place. All of the executions took place by hanging. All those executed were convicted in a Kano state court and relocated to prisons across the country, including Jos, Kaduna and Enugu. Their death warrants were all signed by the current Kano state governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau.

Nigerian born Olufemi Adefolaju who is involved in human rights advocacy told Black Britain: “It happens on a daily basis, often to people who perceived as being political enemies. People are suffering in silence. There is open intimidation and corruption just to keep the leader in power. Nigerians are very powerful because nobody seems to want to challenge them. There is systematic elimination of people who try to speak up to challenge the abuse and corruption.”

Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme said: “The Nigerian government has been misleading the world – and they must now come clean on their death penalty record, establish an immediate moratorium on all executions in the country, and fully investigate how something like this could have happened.”

The detailed cases uncovered by Amnesty International include: On 30 May 2006, Kenneth Ekhone and Auwalu Musa were executed by hanging in Kaduna Central Prison. They were tried and convicted by a Robbery and Firearms Tribunal, but did not have lawyers throughout the proceedings. They were also not given an opportunity to appeal against the judgements. Until his death, Auwalu Musa denied he had anything to do with the crime. On 15 June 2006, Salisu Babuga was transferred from Kaduna prison to Jos prison, where he was hanged. At least four men were hanged in Enugu prison in 2006.

Amnesty International also believes that at least one execution has taken place in Port Harcourt prison. Amnesty International is continuing to investigate in order to confirm the names of those executed and the dates of the executions. On November 15 2007, a Nigerian government representative at the UN spoke about the death penalty in Nigeria. He said, “punishment only comes after exhaustive legal and judicial processes, including recourse to the supreme court of the land”…”It is thus on record that we have not carried out any capital punishment in recent years in Nigeria.”

Erwin van der Borght said that there is no excuse for the Nigerian government misleading the international community about its human rights record. But Adefolaju said that Africans have a responsibility to hold the Nigerian government to account: “African leaders and Africans in the Diaspora must make a stand against the human rights abuses in Nigeria,” he said.


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