NIGERIA’S 100-YEAR-OLD-DEATH-ROW PRISONER BEGS FOR PARDON
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Joseph Omoniyi
Dubbed Nigeria’s “oldest prisoner”, death-row inmate, Celestine Egbunuche who has spent 18 years in prison pleads for his release.
The 100-year-old man from Imo State was found guilty of organising a murder alongside his 41-year-old son, Paul Egbunuche and been in the Enugu Maximum Security Prison in south-east Nigeria since then.
Paul who maintained their innocence said, they were detained in June 2000 and eventually convicted and sentenced to death in 2014.
Paul said that his father is not really able to talk much any more and is no longer aware of his surroundings.
“When you ask him something, he says something else. The doctor told me that it is his age, he has become like a little pikin [child].
“There are some times when he will ask me: ‘These people here [inmates], what are they doing here?'”
The latest figures from the Nigerian Prisons Service show that more than 2,000 people are on death row in Nigeria, many of whom spend years waiting to be executed.
Amnesty International reported that, death sentence is not commonly carried out in Nigeria. Between 2007 and 2017, there were seven executions, the last one taking place in 2016.
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