President Olusegun Obasanjo advocates the abolition...

President Olusegun Obasanjo advocates the abolition of capital punishment in a book, published in November, entitled This Animal called Man, which is replete with stories told to Obasanjo in detention by Nigerians falsely accused and jailed or later killed for offenses they were innocent of. "There are many cases all over the place where due to lapses and/or corruption, the wrong people have been sentenced to death and the sentences carried out," he writes. Obasanjo recalls that he "cannot fail to bring to remembrance the fact that Abacha and his clique fabricated a non-existent coup and secretly tried and sentenced 14 people to death. If it had not been for national and international outcry and outrage, he would have carried out the sentences," said Obasanjo, one of the 14 sentenced to death. He warned that no "mindless and mad Nigerian leader must be given that sort of opportunity again."