BY Onozure  Dania

As the world marks the World Day Against Death Penalty, human rights groups, Legal Defence and Assistance Project, LEDAP, and Nigeria Death Penalty Group, NDEPELG, have called on the Federal Government to put an end to death penalty as a capital punishment in the country.

LEDAP said the Nigerian government should not continue to ignore the need for the reform of the Nigerian criminal justice system.

National Coordinator of LEDAP, Mr. Chino Obiagwu, said the group wanted government to reconsider its stand on capital punishment by abolishing death penalty and replacing it with life imprisonment.

He said: “The World Day Against the Death Penalty is a day set aside for the people, the government and the world to revisit the challenges associated with death penalty. It is also a day to remind the government of their responsibility to preserve life.”

According to Obiagwu, the group had over the years campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty by focusing on individual cases of injustice through direct free legal assistance to death row inmates.