38-Year-Old Nigerian Man Hanged In Singapore For Cannabis Offence

A 38-year-old Nigerian man has been hanged for drug trafficking after being caught with 2.6kg of cannabis.

“A 38-year-old male Nigerian national, Chijioke Stephen Obioha, had his death sentence carried out on 18 November 2016 at Changi Prison Complex,” the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement.

Obioha, who graduated in industrial chemistry from Nigeria’s Benin University, had originally moved to Singapore in 2005 hoping to be a footballer.

He was arrested in 2007 by drugs officers who found 14 blocks of cannabis in a bag he was carrying and another 14 blocks in the flat he was renting, the Straits Times newspaper reported.

Under Singapore law, anyone caught with more than 500 grams of cannabis can be sentenced to death.

Obioha’s execution followed a lengthy legal process.

An initial appeal against the sentence was turned down in 2010.

Obioha then turned down the possibility of applying for re-sentencing after a change in the law that came into force in 2013.

On Thursday, his lawyers launched a final bid to have his sentence commuted to life in prison but that was refused by a three-judge court.

Rights group Amnesty International condemned the execution:

By executing people for drug-related offences, which do not meet the threshold of most serious crimes, Singapore is violating international law.”
A 31-year-old Malaysian man was also executed at the same time for trafficking heroin.

Singapore executed four people in 2015, one for murder and three for drug offences, according to prison statistics.