Nigeria said that it was looking for ways to "decongest"...

Nigeria said that it was looking for ways to "decongest" the death row sections of its jails, where 458 prisoners were awaiting execution, some of them for more than 20 years.
"The president has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the justice minister, to assess all these cases and see what final decision we will take on it," Internal Affairs Minister Iyorcha Ayu said after meeting President Olusegun Obasanjo.
"Today is actually a preliminary meeting to consider these cases that remain in spite of the effort to reform the justice system in the country, and secondly to make sure that the prisons are decongested and made more habitable," he said.
The minister did not speculate whether the programme would involve an accelerated programme of hangings for death row inmates, or whether more capital convictions would be commuted to prison terms.