A Case For And Against The Abolition Of Capital Punishment Under Nigeria’s Criminal Justice System

ABSTRACTEver since independence, the criminal justice system of Nigeria has accommodated capital punishment which is also known as “death penalty”, as a punitive measure for specifically defined offences. In the past 15 years, scholars, researchers and students of penology and criminology have championed the debate for abolition of death penalty and vice versa. As of December 31st 2013, the number of abolitionist states stood at 140, while that of the retentionist States stood at 58, with Nigeria being one of the retentionist countries .On one hand, those who support the continued retention of…