v.
The offender is under the age of 18 years.
vi.
The offender is pregnant
With regard to limitation of the death penalty to serious crimes, the term
‘serious crimes’ is devoid
of any
generally accepted definition and
agreement. The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed the phrase
to mean International crimes with lethal or other extremely grave
consequences.
Death penalty cannot be imposed, if all the provisions of the ICCPR
regarding due process have not been complied with. These include but not
limited to, the presumption of innocence, informing the accused the nature
of the offence committed by him, the accused right to counsel of his own
choice, giving the accused reasonable time to which to prepare and present
his defence, trial before an independent and impartial tribunal and the right
to review by a higher tribunal.
The Application before the Court actually contests the very existence of
capital punishment in the Nigeria judicial system. However, he does not
provide any strict and concrete evidence of violation of her rights outside the
general critique she made on capital punishment. There is no evidence
before this Court that the Defendant have signed and or ratified any
International human rights instrument bending on her with regard to the
abolition of the death penalty. Granted that International human rights
instruments especially the ICCPR and the African Charter on Human and
16