On Tuesday, October 13, 2026, Hope Behind Bars Africa (HBBA), in partnership with the Embassy of France in Nigeria, commemorated the World Day Against the Death Penalty with Stories of Life: Beyond the Sentence. The event brought together justice sector practitioners, human rights advocates, diplomats, and members of the public to examine the human realities of capital punishment in Nigeria.
Held at Ventures Park in Maitama, Abuja, the event explored the experiences of people on death row, challenges within the criminal justice system, and the consequences of death sentences for families and communities.
Every year on October 10, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and abolitionist organisations mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty. Since its establishment in 2003, the day has been used to mobilise global advocacy for the abolition of capital punishment. The campaign brings attention to the human stories behind death sentences, including the experiences of people on death row and the families who live with the consequences.
In her welcome remarks, Funke Adeoye, Executive Director of Hope Behind Bars Africa, said the organisation had commemorated the day for eight years. She questioned what happens when a justice system that can make mistakes imposes a punishment that nobody can reverse.
Adeoye noted that people sometimes enter the criminal justice system under circumstances that raise questions about whether they should be there. She highlighted the finality of capital punishment and expressed hope that Nigeria would maintain its de facto moratorium on executions. For context, December 2026 will mark ten years since Nigeria last carried out an execution.
Ketty Regis, Cooperation Attaché at the Embassy of France in Nigeria, reaffirmed France’s commitment to the universal abolition of the death penalty. She emphasised the need to uphold human dignity and recognise the people and families behind every death sentence. Her message was clear: justice and humanity must always go hand in hand.
Spoken word artist Pélémo Nyajo explored what it means to remain human while facing the death penalty. The performance evoked the uncertainty of waiting, repentance, and the feeling of being suspended between life and death.
The audience then watched a documentary about women on death row, set in Tennessee, United States of America. This story followed the lives of four women who were on death row for a couple of years. Two of the women showed some contrition for their crimes, one emphasized her innocence, and one, Christa Pike – whose name is the only one that stayed with me – went from contrition to anger and a kind of cockiness that made you wonder. The film prompted questions about the circumstances that lead to death sentences, the legal representation available to accused persons, and the social and economic conditions that shape access to justice.
The discussion also highlighted the need to examine death row figures by sex and understand the experiences of women facing capital punishment. Poverty and inadequate legal resources can limit access to effective representation, raising further questions about whether every accused person receives a fair trial.
I must admit that when I received the invitation to the event, I came with my biases.
I started out as an idealist. I believed people deserved the opportunity to correct their wrongs and should not have to live forever defined by one act they committed, even when that act constituted a capital offence that attracted the death penalty. As I grew older, worked on human rights issues, and explored their intersections, my idealistic worldview began to change.
I started asking myself difficult questions. Should someone who killed people with glee and showed no remorse still have the right to live? What about terrorists who killed multiple people in a single attack? People who tortured others for sadistic pleasure? Human and organ traffickers? Rapists, whether their victims were children, adults, or even animals? What about government officials whose corruption and negligence contributed to the deaths of countless people across Nigeria and Africa? Surely, did these people deserve to live? Was correction enough to deliver justice?
As I watched the depravity people could reach and the ease with which evil persisted in our country and across the world, my perspective changed completely. I began to believe that the threat of death could deter people from committing certain crimes. Eventually, I started to support the death penalty.
The panel discussion that followed featured three panellists with experience across legal practice, human rights advocacy, research, and correctional services. Alhajaed Bakare, Political and Economic Officer at the Australian High Commission, moderated the discussion.
Mrs. Ogechi Ogu, a lawyer, consultant, and researcher for Beyond Her Sentence, examined the legal and socioeconomic factors that shape death penalty cases, with particular attention to women on death row and the effects of incarceration on their families. Ms. Nkechi Ezike, a lawyer and human rights advocate, discussed challenges within the criminal justice process, including inadequate legal representation, coerced confessions, evidence handling, and rushed proceedings. Mr Adamu Samson Duza, Deputy Superintendent of Corrections and Public Relations Officer for the FCT Command of the Nigerian Correctional Service, shared insights into the management of inmates on death row, their mental health challenges, and the effects of incarceration on their families.
It is this conversation that caused a chink in the walls I had built around my empathy (or lack thereof) for truly vile criminals.
Mrs. Ogechi described the psychological burden of living under a death sentence. “Being on death row is not just the location. It is knowing that at any time, you could be executed.” Her remarks drew attention to the uncertainty that defines life on death row and the need to examine whether the punishment, the offence, and the process that led to the sentence meet the requirements of justice.
She also examined how poverty affects access to legal representation and how women experience incarceration differently. Women in custody may continue to think of their responsibility to their children and other dependants, while some face abandonment by their families. These circumstances extend the consequences of a death sentence beyond the individual.
Ms. Nkechi traced the risks within the criminal justice process from the point of arrest. Inadequate legal representation, poorly gathered or analysed evidence, and confessions obtained under duress can affect the outcome of a case. She also raised concerns about inconsistencies in case proceedings and instances where authorities rush justice. She emphasised the importance of proper investigations, sound evidence handling, and judicial training.
Representing the Nigerian Correctional Service, DS Duza explained how correctional officers manage inmates and the additional security arrangements they maintain for people on death row. He also discussed the anxiety and other mental health challenges inmates experience, noting that their families carry their own emotional burden.
“For every inmate on death row, there is a family that is serving a different kind of sentence,” DS Duza said. His observation drew attention to the people outside correctional facilities who live with the uncertainty, stigma, and emotional consequences of a family member’s death sentence.
DS Duza also highlighted how overstretched institutional capacity affects correctional facilities and the judiciary. His remarks underscored the need to consider the wider systems that shape the administration of justice.
What, then, was said during the panel that made me revisit my convictions? These are not new concerns, but hearing them articulated again brought back something I had buried a long time ago. The Nigerian justice system is deeply flawed. Investigations can be shoddy, evidence can be tampered with or outright fabricated, and if you are poor, you face double jeopardy. You may lack the resources to secure proper legal representation, understand the charges against you, or challenge the evidence presented in court. Your freedom, and sometimes your life, can depend on whether you can afford to defend yourself.
I remember a story my father once shared with us. He was sitting with a group of people, being the extrovert he was, when he noticed an older man sitting with his head bowed in distress. My father asked him what had happened, and the man told him about his son, who had been arrested and brought to Kaduna from another state. According to the account, authorities had forced the young man to take another person’s name and repeatedly brought him before a lower court on charges of kidnapping and murder.
From what my father understood, the young man was a herder who had nowhere to sleep. Authorities had reportedly picked him up during what the family described as a raid on people accused of wandering. Somehow, he had become entangled in a case involving crimes as grave as kidnapping and murder.
My father took up the case, went to court, and eventually secured the young man’s release. But I remember that my father did not describe the outcome as a straightforward victory. He took the case pro bono, yet the experience left a difficult question hanging over us: what might have happened to that young man if nobody had intervened?
He could have spent years in prison or even faced execution for crimes he did not commit. His poverty, lack of education, limited knowledge of the law, and inability to assert rights he did not know he possessed had left him dangerously exposed.
That story has stayed with me because it brings the flaws of the justice system into sharp focus. When we discuss the death penalty, we often focus on the crime and the person accused of committing it. But what happens when the system gets the wrong person? What happens when investigators make mistakes, evidence fails to withstand scrutiny, or an accused person cannot afford a lawyer who will challenge the case against them?
A death sentence leaves no room to correct such a mistake after an execution. And in a system where poverty can determine the quality of justice a person receives, I find myself confronting the question I thought I had already answered: how can I support a punishment that depends on a justice system I know can fail?
How could I, in good faith, support the death penalty, especially for women, when the discussion reminded me that women can face harsher judgment for certain crimes, including adultery, sexual offences, and crimes that challenge traditional expectations of how women should behave? What about women who take the lives of men who have subjected them to years of domestic violence, abuse, or sexual assault? What happens when a woman who has endured years of violence finally snaps and kills her abuser? Can we separate that final act from the years of suffering that preceded it? Can we deliver justice without examining the circumstances that brought someone to that point? These questions do not erase the harm caused or the need for accountability. They force me to confront the possibility that, when we impose the ultimate punishment, we may fail to account for the full story, the failures of the systems meant to protect people, and the unequal circumstances in which women experience violence and seek justice.
And since the event, I have stayed with this question over and again.
During the plenary conversation, I asked whether organisations could develop documentaries like the one screened at the event as advocacy tools while complying with the rules and procedures that govern correctional facilities. I also raised the question of psychosocial support, drawing on experiences in which organizations documented that their attempts to provide such support encountered institutional boundaries.
The film we watched was impactful, but it told the stories of white women in America. It could not capture the specific realities of women in Africa, let alone Nigerian women on death row. Their experiences unfold within different social, cultural, economic, and legal contexts, and we need stories that reflect those realities. The organisers also displayed written accounts of women’s experiences in the room. These stories offered valuable perspectives, but they affected me differently from a documentary, which can bring people closer to the voices, faces, and lived experiences behind the sentences.
This is where I saw a connection with our work at Shades of Us. Through our Mobile Cinema Approach, we use film and facilitated dialogue to address socioeconomic issues affecting Africans and people of African descent. We create spaces where people can engage with difficult subjects, reflect on lived experiences, and discuss the conditions shaping their lives. I wanted to understand how we could adapt this approach to correctional settings, using documentary storytelling to bring the experiences of Nigerian women on death row into public conversations about justice, accountability, and human dignity.
The discussion confirmed that organisations can explore documentary production and other storytelling initiatives in collaboration with the Nigerian Correctional Service, provided they follow the appropriate procedures. Anyone seeking access to correctional facilities or hoping to work with inmates must engage the service through its established channels.
For us, this raised further questions about how we can extend our storytelling and community engagement work into correctional settings while respecting the rights and dignity of incarcerated people and the institutional safeguards that govern access. It also highlighted the need to understand what correctional facilities currently permit and what partnerships could make psychosocial support possible.
Stories of Life: Beyond the Sentence connected the experiences of people on death row and their families to wider questions about legal representation, evidence, judicial processes, correctional conditions, and human dignity.
The speakers challenged participants to examine how authorities impose death sentences and whether the justice system adequately protects people from errors that could cost them their lives. They also highlighted the consequences for families and the responsibilities of the institutions that administer justice.
Hope Behind Bars Africa and the Embassy of France in Nigeria created space for these conversations through the commemoration. The event reinforced the importance of hearing the stories behind death sentences and examining capital punishment through the lives it affects, the institutions that administer it, and the families that continue to live with its consequences.
And as Dorcas Anaja, the Programmes Pointperson for Access to Justice at Hope Behind Bars Africa, said, “We really should question our biases around the death penalty because human rights should always be at the core of who we are.”
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