Nigeria
Death penalty and prisoners' rights · Archive since 1999
Data card
- Legal status
- Retentionist
- Executions recorded in 2026
- 0
- Executions recorded in 2025
- 0
- First news item in the archive
- JANUARY 1, 1999 · The death penalty is provided for by the Criminal Code...
- News items in the archive
- 1,117
Source: Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026.
Nigeria is classified as Retentionist in the Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026. In 2026 the association recorded 0 executions in the country, against 0 the year before. The archive holds 1,117 news items on Nigeria, from 1999 to today.
In Nigeria the death penalty is provided for by the penal code and, in the northern states applying sharia law, also for offences such as apostasy and adultery. The methods provided for are hanging and shooting.
Sentences are numerous and death row is crowded, while actual executions are rare and concentrated in short periods. The archive follows sentences, executions and commutations.
Latest news
- JANUARY 9, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Vandalising the abandoned Shell oil pipelines in Nigeria...
Vandalising the abandoned Shell oil pipelines in Nigeria carries the death penalty
- JANUARY 9, 2002ItalyDEATH PENALTY
Hands Off Cain adhered to the demonstration for Safiya...
Hands Off Cain adhered to the demonstration for Safiya Husseini, a Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning for adultery by an Islamic court, organised by the Rai Radio programme Zapping, presented by Aldo Forbice
- JANUARY 9, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Hands Off Cain adhered to the demonstration for Safiya...
Hands Off Cain adhered to the demonstration for Safiya Husseini, a Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning for adultery by an Islamic court, organised by the Rai Radio programme Zapping, presented by Aldo Forbice
- JANUARY 7, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Prison officials in Nigeria's Katsina state remained...
Prison officials in Nigeria's Katsina state remained tight lipped about why Sani Yakubu Rodi was executed by hanging instead of by machete as his sentence stipulated
- JANUARY 3, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
A convicted murderer was hanged in northern Nigeria...
A convicted murderer was hanged in northern Nigeria in the country's first execution under Muslim sharia law, which has sparked riots in the West African country
- JANUARY 3, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The Chief Imam of Badagry, Lagos, Alhaji Imam Muslim...
The Chief Imam of Badagry, Lagos, Alhaji Imam Muslim Olayide Huthman, speaking on the death sentence passed on Safiya Hussaini for adultery [October 2001], advised the Sokoto state government to drop the charge if they cannot get the second person
- JANUARY 1, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The death penalty is provided for by the Criminal Code...
The death penalty is provided for by the Criminal Code and the legislation on civil disturbances for armed robbery, murder, treason, and offenses against the State
- JANUARY 1, 2002NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
"We want Sharia, the best of all the laws"
"We want Sharia, the best of all the laws" is scrawled in brown letters along the walls of the building where our meeting with the state authorities was held
- DECEMBER 27, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Sani Yakubu, also known as Sani Rodi, failed to appeal...
Sani Yakubu, also known as Sani Rodi, failed to appeal against the death sentence passed on him by the Katsina State Sharia court
- DECEMBER 26, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Some 3,000 people held a vigil at the Nigerian Embassy...
Some 3,000 people held a vigil at the Nigerian Embassy in Rome to call on the West African government spare the life of a woman due to be stoned to death under sharia law
- DECEMBER 21, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
A shari'ah court in Sokoto State, northern Nigeria,...
A shari'ah court in Sokoto State, northern Nigeria, ordered the amputation of the right hands and left legs of two convicted armed robbers
- DECEMBER 18, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
A legal practitioner and former Chairman of the Kaduna...
A legal practitioner and former Chairman of the Kaduna branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Daniel Enwelum, said that Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has no constitutional rights to stop the execution of the death sentence on Safiya Hussain,
- DECEMBER 17, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The Nigerian Coalition of Women's Rights and Economic...
The Nigerian Coalition of Women's Rights and Economic Empowerment (CWREE) picked holes in the shari'ah court judgment that sentenced Safiya Hussaini, to death, saying that the death penalty runs counter to the constitution of all known international laws
- DECEMBER 16, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
An Islamic court told Safiya Hussaini, who was sentenced...
An Islamic court told Safiya Hussaini, who was sentenced to die after being found guilty of adultery, that her life will be spared if she can prove her daughter Adama, who is now almost a year old, was the result of rape
- DECEMBER 13, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
As 35-year-old Safiya Hussaini's death sentence by...
As 35-year-old Safiya Hussaini's death sentence by stoning continues to generate controversies across the globe, it appears the adultery case promises to test the restoration of Islamic law in 12 northern states
- DECEMBER 13, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos [Dr Anthony Olubunmi...
The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos [Dr Anthony Olubunmi Okogie] offered to die for a mother of five sentenced to death by stoning by a Muslim sharia court in northwest Sokoto state which convicted her of sex outside marriage
- DECEMBER 12, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
A leading member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's...
A leading member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party lobbied the government to intervene with a Nigerian Muslim state to spare the life of a woman due to be stoned to death under Sharia law
- DECEMBER 9, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Safiya Hussaini said of the death sentence hanging...
Safiya Hussaini said of the death sentence hanging over her: 'I felt sick when the judge passed down the sentence because of the injustice of it all
- DECEMBER 5, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
In the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto, a woman is...
In the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto, a woman is awaiting the outcome of an appeal against a conviction for adultery by an Islamic, or Sharia, court
- DECEMBER 5, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Safiya Hussaini Tudu, the Sokoto woman convicted of...
Safiya Hussaini Tudu, the Sokoto woman convicted of adultery by a Sharia court cried out for justice to be done to her
- DECEMBER 5, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Safiya Hussaini's lawyer, a man called Abdulkadar Imam...
Safiya Hussaini's lawyer, a man called Abdulkadar Imam Ibrahim, does not inspire confidence
- DECEMBER 3, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
A Nigerian sharia court of appeal ordered a stay of...
A Nigerian sharia court of appeal ordered a stay of execution for a woman sentenced to be stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage, despite her contention that she was raped, officials said
- DECEMBER 3, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Scores of women carrying placards and chanting songs...
Scores of women carrying placards and chanting songs stormed Governor Bola Tinubu's Office in Alausa pleading for Safiya Hussaini's life
- DECEMBER 2, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
An NGO based in Abuja, the Multmedia Centre for Democracy,...
An NGO based in Abuja, the Multmedia Centre for Democracy, decried the death sentence passed on Safiya Hussaini in Sokoto state
- DECEMBER 2, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Halima Abdullahi, director of Help Eliminate Loneliness...
Halima Abdullahi, director of Help Eliminate Loneliness and Poverty, HELP, a non-governmental organisation, said the verdict condemning Safiya Hussaini to death by stoning for adultery "was a thorough embarrassment" to the majority of Nigerian Muslims
- NOVEMBER 27, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
As the controversy over the death sentence passed on...
As the controversy over the death sentence passed on Safiya Tungar-Tudu for adultery continued, an Islamic Scholar, Abdulfattai Adeyemi, urged the Sokoto Sharia committee to exercise restraint in carrying out the punishment
- NOVEMBER 23, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
"Safiya Hussaini was in court on November 22," Sokoto...
"Safiya Hussaini was in court on November 22," Sokoto state spokesman Mustapha Shehu told Reuters by phone from Sokoto city
- NOVEMBER 21, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
Etim Okpoyo, Nigerian Ambassador to Rome, assured Hands...
Etim Okpoyo, Nigerian Ambassador to Rome, assured Hands Off Cain that the Federal Government will not allow Safiya Hussaini to be stoned to death
- NOVEMBER 20, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
ITALIAN ACTIVISTS PROTEST AGAINST SAFIYA’S DEATH SENTENCE
November 20, 2001: Hands off Cain and Italian political parties will stage a protest in Rome tomorrow against the death sentence by stoning handed out to a Nigerian woman for pre-marital sex.
- NOVEMBER 19, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The House of Representatives Committee on Women and...
The House of Representatives Committee on Women and Youth Development intervened in the case of a woman, Safiya Hussaini sentenced to death by a Sharia court for committing adultery saying it had persuaded the Speaker, Hon