Barely one year ago, Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), a human rights organisation, alerted the nation that about 300 Nigerians were on death row in prisons across Asian countries. During the World Day Against the Use of the Death Penalty last week, LEPAD once again drew the country's attention to the rising number of Nigerians awaiting execution in different parts of the world. Within this period, the number of offenders has doubled as more than 600 Nigerians in South- East Asia countries are awaiting the hangman, most of them on drug-related offences.
The revelations highlight the increasing desperation of some Nigerians in the narcotic trade. More Nigerians are pouring across the borders with hard drugs in spite of the sophistication in technology as well as the stiff punishment mapped out to curb the illegal business. The boom in the illegal trade perhaps speaks to the fact that the country's law enforcement agencies still have much work on their hands. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are evidently among the active drug routes, judging by the number of traffickers caught regularly. Incidentally, these are countries where it is public knowledge that trafficking in hard drug carries the mandatory death sentence.
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