November 17, 2016
Unless a last minute miracle will happen via a presidential stay, a Nigerian man convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore will be executed on Friday, November 18, 2016.
A Nigerian man on death row in Singapore, Chijioke Stephen Obioha, will be executed on Friday, November 18, 2016, after he was sentenced to death for drug trafficking.
Obioha who was arrested on April 9, 2007, with 2,604.56 grammess of cannabis in the Asian country, was found guilty and sentenced to death in November 2008.
According to Amnesty International (AI), all appeals for a stay of execution by the convict has been rejected and by the law of the country, trafficking more than 500 grammes of cannabis attracts the death penalty.
Efforts by AI to plead for clemency for Obioha, a University of Benin Industrial Chemistry graduate, has met the brick walls, despite his pleas that he was set up in a sting operation.
A statement signed by Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International’s Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, reads:
"The Singapore government still has time to halt the execution of Chijoke Stephen Obioha.
We are dismayed that clemency has not been granted in his case but remain hopeful that they won’t carry out this cruel and irreversible punishment against a person sentenced to the mandatory death penalty for a crime that should not even be punished by death.
The death penalty is never the solution. It will not rid Singapore of drugs. By executing people for drug-related offenses, which do not meet the threshold of most serious crimes, Singapore is violating international law.
Most of the world has turned its back on this ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
It is about time that Singapore does the same, starting by restoring a moratorium on all executions as a first step towards abolition of this punishment.""
Also, appeals made by the convict's family for clemency has been rejected and the date has been set, unless the president of the country sets aside the execution.
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