Osun State Pardons Man Sentenced To Death For Stealing Fowl

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Thursday, December 26th, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, on Thursday has pardoned the “death-for-fowl” convict, Segun Olowookere, alongside his co-convict, Sunday Morakinyo.

The African Examiner recalls that Olowookere, who was 17 years old at the time he was arrested in November 2010, was convicted and sentenced to death by an Osun State High Court on December 17, 2014, for conspiracy to commit armed robbery, robbery, and stealing.

His case attracted public attention shortly after his mother appeared on a podcast, asking for intervention for her son.

The story went viral on social media and this made Adeleke to direct the state’s attorney general to start the process for his pardon.

In a statement issued on Thursday by the governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, the governor announced the pardon of Olowookere, Morakinyo, and 51 other inmates.

The statement partly read: “In line with the recommendations of the State Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy, Governor Ademola Adeleke has exercised the prerogative of mercy towards 53 convicts serving various convictions within the Nigerian Correctional Service.

“Now know ye therefore that, I, Senator Ademola Jackson Adeleke, the Governor of Osun State of Nigeria, in exercise of the power conferred on me by paragraph (a), (c) and (d) of subsection (i) of Section 212 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended), I am pleased to extend my grace and mercy unto the said inmates.

“Convict recommended for outright pardon for good conduct (capital offences) is: Sunday Morakinyo, Segun Olowookere, Tunde Olapade and Demola Odeyemi.”